"It's Genetic." Riiiight.

im running out of reasons to explain my laughter here..

as soon as the MIL picture is a few pages back, i wont worry..



( i know you were being serious, but .. HA.. cant help it.. made me laugh..)

The doctor who saw me after the stroke said that ( and I quote.. !! ) " I was the healthiest fat person he ever saw"

He did all of my blood work, and every single test you could think of.
My levels were all perfect. Expically my cholesterol.

I do think I am quite "healthy", im just fluffy . hehe


Actually..

I wouldnt call it fluffy..

Im just fully furnished.



By the way..

you are not fat my dear....

and if you want to talk about who cant keep thier eyes off of who..
remove that cowboy hat sometime and just look at his face.

Many times you have to fool your body to get it out of starvation mode. Cutting back to that few number of calories may actually be counter productive. Your body is trying hard to hold on to every bit of fat it has. Restrict your calories too much and your metabolism plummets.

One of the often repeated recommendations on forums of gastric bypass people when they reach a plateau after dieting for awhile and just can't seem to lose any more weight is to feed the body just a little extra food. They recommend increasing calories by 300 a day for a week then back down. That let's the body know it is going to be okay and doesn't need to fight to hold on to that fat.

exactly,


One thing we can not fight is our bodies ability to freak out and store food at the first thought of starvation.
Wich happens when the body recieves about 200 calories less then it is used to for 3 days.
For some it might be a bit more then that, for others less. .but that is the general rule.

One of the ways to enjoy a productive diet is to designate a day a week where it is ok to eat pizza, candy, brownies.. what ever your weakness is.
That one day a week is enough to keep your body out of starvation mode and continue its weight loss.

I lost 80+ lbs that way.

But, now , for some reason, it isnt working anymore and I have stopped right where I am.


At least I dont have to buter the doors anymore ehh... ?



( bad joke..! )

shewolfn and Bella Dea... what a combo two fluffy asses... one for the hips one for the lips... mm mm mm

FRIDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Here's something parents might get from their kids: fat.

According to a new study, adults living with children eat more saturated fats than adults who don't live with children. The extra fat adds up to almost an entire frozen pepperoni pizza each week.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

"It's not that parents are doomed to the fate of eating terribly," said study author Dr. Helena Laroche, an associate in the department of internal medicine at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, in Iowa City. "Adults influence children, and children influence adults, and it's important that we focus on the whole family."

The epidemic of obesity in the United States is claiming more and more victims. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 30 percent of adults aged 20 and older are overweight, totaling more than 60 million people. The percentage of young people who are overweight has tripled since 1980. Sixteen percent of children and teens (more than 9 million people) are overweight.

Definitely, that's the lightbulb moment in Gawande's "We are a species that has evolved to survive starvation, not resist abundance" quote, for me. It's not the only factor I don't think, but people (in general) are now able to get more food with less output of energy than they've ever been able to ever before.

I'd have thought that that were obvious. European "peasants" of the middle ages, and for long afterward, cultivated their obesity, as it was the outward evidence of their prosperity. Hence, the adjective "rubenesque."

Well, but in terms of evolution we've never had to resist abundance. We haven't evolved protection against obesity because that hasn't been any particular danger to the species up until the last pixel or so of human history.

Thank you to all of you who've posted your feelings on this exceedingly personal subject.

I'm determined to beat the odds and be healthy. I weighed 289 when I joined Weight Watchers in May of 2005, and I was at 193 at my last official weigh-in, just before xmas. My desire to get to 100 pounds down is a big motivator for me right now. I have about 35 pounds to go to get to a healthy BMI. At that point, I'll weigh less than I did 32 years ago in 10th grade.

So now I'm fairly confident that I can lose the weight, but I'm still worried about staying there. No point in dwelling on it, of course, since it won't be an issue for a while!

It sounds like you've done it in a really healthy way though, mac -- exercise, reasonable diet (not starvation), and taking it slowly. I think your odds are better than most. You probably will have to work harder than a person who had never gotten higher than 160 to stay at 160, but you're certainly working hard enough to get there in the first place.

I have wondered for a while (and here comes a can of worms opening right back up) if some of the anti-obesity prejudice is, well, more traditional prejudice wearing some newer clothing.

Consider this. Who's overweight in America? Yes, everyone, you could argue that and you wouldn't be far from the truth. However, scratch that surface. Who do you find? At least, who do you find more of?

People of color Hispanic folks Jews and other folks of Mediterranean ancestry, such as Greeks and the Spanish and Russians The poor women the middle-aged and young old, not the very young the Midwest

I realize that there are plenty of young white upper class men who are overweight, but this group seems to lean towards the folks I've listed above. Hmmm.

Having lost a good portion of it already will make being physically more active much easier to accomplish and give you a fighting chance at keeping the weight off and still enjoy food.

Congrats on your accomplishment, Mac.

I've always agreed with Sozobe about slow weight loss being best, with exercise of most value, and have no interest in a very low calorie diet for anyone... no matter what that guy who became famous for his science work on extreme low calorie eating (I always forget his name - he was part of the Biosphere project, used to sit across from me at the UCLA med center library a million years ago, rather repeatedly. Maybe he was projecting my likely future weight gain).

I'm pretty anti-diet if it comes down to that (more for change of eating choices). I've posted several articles at a2k about the metabolic components of weight loss and gain, and have at least one more article to post about from a couple of weeks ago, related to a change in gut bacteria that coincides with but may not be a cause, but a result, of weight gain from fat.

Another article I should post is about olive oil's role in health; I'm not so sure just using a 1/2 tsp. of olive oil is the best measure, re lifelong health, even though more would add more fat calories.

On Mac's weight loss, I am so happy for you, Mac. You were a beautiful and gentle person to start with, and I think you will enjoy your weight loss and keep it off, in part because you have done it relatively slowly and used exercise as a big component. You will not be "shocking" your metabolism into a defense mode with the speed of the loss, and so, while it won't be as easy to stay even as it would for someone who never went through the gain and loss cycles, it will be surer for the slowness.

Also, psychologically, the slowness should help -
I've had friends who have lost weight fast and could not really get used to their thinner selves, hard as that may be to conceive of. You have plenty of adapting time.

Shewolfn, I still can't wait to meet you.

Butrflynet, you have been through so much, I'm sure it is very trying now to see the weight start to come back. Please keep trying and keep talking to us about it.

Signed,
Fluffer

(we used to have a strange and not wonderful older woman neighbor who had a cat named Fluffer. She used to call out, at all hours, "fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff, fluffffffffffffeeeeeerrrrrrr" in a sort of screech. Damn, I kind of miss her now. Not the cat, which I hardly ever saw, but the lady.)

Thats a straw man - people can - and do - feel disgust at a drunk continuing to drink.

You can (and did) say that with a drunk, you notice it less often - and thats just a question of mean luck - but when people do notice, they react the same way, with the same condemnation. People behaving unhealthily and thus deteriorating their health are generally treated condemningly - whether its smokers nowadays (!!), or drunks, or whatever - outside the community of fellow behavers, they meet social censure. Yes, fat people have the bad luck that they are faced with the rejection every time someone sees them, whereas a drunk meets it only when someone sees him drink - but the rejection is the same.

And, unkind it may be, its there for a reason of course; through social control (of which censure is a part), humans keep other humans, generally, more or less in line of what is right or smart or healthy.

Nimh, I hear you...because I used to be ridiculously skinny too.

The first summer I started lifting weights, I was in college. I'm 5'10, maybe 5'11, and weighed 135-140lbs. That's like a pretty thin chick at that height.

By mid-summer, I was about 155, and everyone was telling me how better I looked, ect. Then I busted my finger open at work and it got infected. Couldn't go to the gym for the last month, and went back to school at my original weight. Was wearing sweaters because I hated being that skinny, especially after experiencing having a little muscle. One of my female friends, who last saw me at my best, told me I was too skinny. It sounds stupid, because hell, she was kinda fat, but it absolutely killed me.

Her comment helped me in the long run. I went on a stupid strict diet/workout program, and a few months later I was in the 160's, cut, and my friends from home who came to visited me swore I was on steroids. Not that I was big by any means, but putting on 25 lean pounds in a matter of months is a ton.

I always felt my situation of being overly skinny and gaining good weight is exactly the same, and just as difficult as someone who is fat and has to lose weight. You should actually be on the same diet schedule of 5-6 meals a day, workout including weights, the big difference is caloric intake.

But Nimh, being skinny isn't viewed as bad, or unhealthy. That's why people don't think those comments hurt. Some would love to be that slim. You can't take offense....especially when it comes from a woman.

Now I'm 190, and if I jump off a roof and flex my lats, I can hang glide for about 40 minutes.

Yeah yeah sure, definitely. I mean - well, I'm just not up for that, to be honest, its not important enough for me -- but yeah, that means that people will remark on me being so thin every so often. You take some you lose some.


Well, thats not true tho - theres a host of associations that come from it - from people telling you that you should eat better etc to the associations of being puny, not being manly enough, etc. Plenty of negative associations.

But yeah, for sure, for a woman (or man) who him/herself is trying to lose weight and would love to be skinny, of course, its hard to empathise, so yeah no, I dont blame 'em.

In fact, I only take offense in really, you know, striking cases - like, that friend's remark I mentioned, that was just too ... well, thats just mean. And when someone posts a picture here on A2K, nobody would dare say, "you're too fat", so you know, posting only to say, "you should eat more, you're too thin" is just rude in my book. But yeah sure, there'll be enough jocular pals and fussy aunts and random folks in a bar interspersing some jokey or concerned "hey you should eat better!" line into conversation. I mean, well, yeah, of course - and hell, they even got a point too.

It's definitely rude to comment on stuff like that when posting a photo. I'd be pissed if someone pointed out the fact my chin is as strong as a bird's. My point was, I don't think the woman in question was trying to be insulting....she's a woman(not to be sexist), so saying something like "you're too skinny" was probably in jest, because to a female "too skinny" is a compliment.

I mean, most women watch the Adopt-An-Ethiopian infomercials and think, "if only I had that discipline."

Nimh, excellent point about society putting pressure on its members to maintain their health, but it is still hurtful, thoughtless and rude. I guess those of us who are too fat or too thin should just get over it, but when it is said so often, even by strangers, it becomes a sort of trigger--an instinct to double up in a defensive mode. I don't let it get to me anymore, but I sure do sympathize with younger people who are still easily hurt. BTW, you and Dys should get together some day and compare war stories. It will be a way to see me get raging mad and start swearing about those SOBS or just B's.

I always told my sons--if someone insults you, just turn it around and understand that they are really describing themselves. For those of us who have always had weight trouble, those insulting people, even if they aren't fat, are groping for ways to feel good about themselves, which is just sad and pathetic.

i like really skinny men