Judging people and their weight

So maybe your weight gain came from stuffing your face, but mine certainly didn't.

Yes, it did.

Just watched a show on TV where this "Doctor" is saying that people are fat because they want to be. That is such BS. I don't know one person, including myself, who wakes up every morning and says...."Hey, I want to stuff my face and be fat, so that people can stare at me, and judge me". Some of these doctors are complete idiots. Being fat is NOT the problem with most people. It's just a symptom of the problem. Many people eat excessively because of emotional issues, depression, loneliness, to find comfort etc. It makes me angry that people are so quick to judge others without knowing their story or walking even a block in their shoes. Hate it!

I agree that people are quick to judge fat people without knowing a single thing about their situation. Usually they've made up their mind without spending one second to actually find out if it's true.

The worst part of the judgement is the negativity. They've already decided the person is "bad" or "less than" in someway. Whether it's true or not, the fat person wasn't even given a chance to be judged on who they are as a human being.

This is a topic that's dear to my heart. I spent the better part of my life having Doctors tell me that it was my fault that I was fat. It wasn't until I was 325 lbs, and diabetic that I found a Doctor who said maybe there was another reason for it. I had a lot of test and eventually they found out that I had a tumor on my Pituitary (Cushings Disease). In short no matter how hard I worked at loosing weight (and I did) I would always gain weight as long as I had that tumor. The thing is that no one listened to me because they all said it was that I wasn't trying hard enough, and didn't want it enough. Working out 3 hours a day five days a week, and I gained weight, and it had to be what I was eating. Counting calories, counting fat, and countless weight loss efforts, and it still had to be something I was doing. It's all fine to say there are people who's choice is to be fat, but it's more harmful than you'll ever know when you assume people are doing that. I had the tumor out in 2012 and I dropped a lot of weight going from 325 to 245 in a year. My body is used to being fat now because it began when I was young but accelerated when I got pregnant in 2010. Since no one listened to me until 2012 I'll never know how long the tumor was there, and all because people and Doctors just wanted to dismiss me as Fat by choice. It is far kinder, and more productive not to jump to conclusions, and be supportive. For some people their weight isn't important, and it shouldn't be anyone's business but their own. For the others that are struggling mocking them and or stigmatizing them is not helpful, it's just destructive and spiteful.

Wow! That is a terrible story.

So maybe your weight gain came from stuffing your face, but mine certainly didn't.

Yes, it did.

"Possible mechanisms include blockade of histamine H1 and serotonin 2C receptors, carbohydrate craving caused by alpha-noradrenergic activity or histamine blockade, changes in the regulation of body fat stores by modulating neurotransmitter systems at the hypothalamic level, and recovery from clinical depression.2,5,9,10."

^No it didn't.

Selective reading, quote mining, ignorance of thermodynamics, and ignoring rebuttals and clarifications doesn't change the fact that you were eating at a caloric excess.

So maybe your weight gain came from stuffing your face, but mine certainly didn't.

Yes, it did.

"Possible mechanisms include blockade of histamine H1 and serotonin 2C receptors, carbohydrate craving caused by alpha-noradrenergic activity or histamine blockade, changes in the regulation of body fat stores by modulating neurotransmitter systems at the hypothalamic level, and recovery from clinical depression.2,5,9,10."

^No it didn't.

Selective reading, quote mining, ignorance of thermodynamics, and ignoring rebuttals and clarifications doesn't change the fact that you were eating at a caloric excess.

And you are trying to argue against research that showed certain antidepressants affect fat oxidation. You look ignorant right now.

You look ignorant right now.

Your Dunning-Kruger syndrome is duly noted.

what bothers me the most is people that have excuses....I dont have time to exercise, my back hurts. my feet hurt, I have this and that wrong with me...all bs

Eh, wrong. Not all medical issues are BS. Some individuals actually do have exercise limitations and/or are not allowed to exercise all together.

You're so right...medical issues are for real. I'd love to get out there and walk...I've tried, but the pain is even worse. I'm anxiously awaiting a total of 5 shots to assist the pain medication I'm taking. I'm not fooling myself into thinking I'll be totally pain free, but if this cuts it by half, I'll be in business. In the meantime, I'm doing my darndest to control what I eat. Those of you who don't have medical issues at this point are blessed; but believe me, as you grow older, you'll know firsthand what I'm talking about. Enjoy your youthful bodies while you can, and take good care of them. The ravages of time creep up on you sooner than you think!

I don't want to be fat. Oh, how I hate being fat. Somedays I can't look in a mirror because of it. Somedays I get anxiety about just leaving the house because of it.
But I will be the first to admit that I was once full of excuses for being fat: It's in my genes. I have emotional issues stemming from being abused as a child and learned from a very early age that food could comfort me. I work full time and have 2 small children so it's hard to find the time to exercise. And so on and so forth.
I have finally reached a place where I know now that the excuses listed above are just that: excuses. They are obstacles, yes. They are challenges, yes. But are they insurmountable? NO.
None of us WANT to be fat. But yes, if you strip it down to bare bones, I am fat because of choices I have made in my life. I see that, I admit that. It can be hard to accept, but I have, and I am grateful that I have. However that doesn't diminish those challenges I face. It doesn't make the journey to being healthy any less difficult for me.
So basically what I am saying is that I do agree with those who say being fat is a choice. But it still hurts to hear that, even though I know deep down it's true.

Said it better than I ever could. I did this to myself. I'm an adult and I posess full reasoning capacity. Admitting it was my fault, that's when I was able to start changing.

I became over weight bc I was suffering from depression. I chose not to work through my problems because being fat was easier than dealing with the truth and the things I had to change. I did this for 10 years. When I decided to work on my depression issues the weight started coming off. I worked hard to get it off but working through my issues at the same time has helped me keep it off. As I kept working on things, I kept losing. Yes people don't generally "want to be fat" BUT ALOT CHOOSE TO BE FAT. I chose to be fat via the way I dealt with problems and turning to food. I will NEVER let things build up in me like I used to, and with that said I will NEVER become fat again for those same reasons. Other than a medical reason or a pregnancy, I feel I wont have to deal with being fat again.

There just seems to be a strange emphasis on distinguishing between a medication-related weight gain (I'm offended, because in my case it was not my fault!) and the types of struggles that SezxyStef wrote about, for example. And lots of people gain weight after being thin because their TDEE decreases. This can be related to medication, definitely, but it can be related to an injury, job issues, getting older, so on. Heck, my mother claimed that she couldn't quit smoking for years because it always caused her to gain weight. (Not saying it's the same thing.)

Again, I don't really see the point of buying into this idea of "fault" or "shame" for being fat anyway. There are reasons, and maybe the answer is unacceptable to you--having to eat super low calorie or give up needed medication certainly seems a bad set of choices--but if someone else is happy making a choice you wouldn't, why does that become blameworthy fatness? I think the point of the first comment (although I kind of think the guess that the "doctor" was House might be right) was that the much more common feeling of powerlessness is not accurate. That's less applicable to someone who has specific medical issues he or she is in the process of examining or working on as someone who just does nothing (or the same unhelpful thing over and over) and complains that she's just unlucky or naturally fat or whatever. I think that person does feel helpless and isn't. And unlike the comments here, I do feel sorry for that person (although I hate being felt sorry for myself, so feel kind of bad about that), since feeling powerless and entirely out of control as to what is happening to you is terrible.

I don't know that anyone's blaming the *fatness*, but they're definitely challenging the attitudes that sustain it.

It's genuinely frustrating to see so many people on this thread say in effect 'I was just like you, but I changed my attitude, modified my behaviors, made better choices, and experienced real progress' and then seeing replies in the vein of 'what do you know? You were just lucky, it won't work for me'.

Two kinds of people say you want to be fat or choose to be fat: People who have never been fat or people who have lost a lot of weight.

This is not true. When I was fat (fatter than I am now, anyway), I knew losing weight was possible and that I was doing things that were causing me to gain. I somewhat consciously and somewhat subconsciously decided that stopping those things, or doing the things that were needed to lose, were not worth the cost. Now, some of the cost was just pleasure--I was tired and wanted a treat or to call for Indian food or just didn't feel like working out when I was out of shape and knew it would be unrewarding at first. But others were more justifiable cost-benefit analyses, IMO--it would take away from attention I was throwing into a huge work project or, and this one is a trade-off I'd probably make again, I had recently stopped drinking and was afraid that not allowing myself to compensate some by using food would make it harder to sustain my tenuous early sobriety. Maybe those were decisions others would have dealt with differently, maybe I would have been better off to make different choices, I don't know or particularly care. The fact is that they were choices, though. A lot of people, like me, are fat because either they are okay with it, dislike the alternatives (or what they assume are the alternatives) more, or don't understand or believe they can change it. That last one is what I'd like to challenge, and what I think is an attitude that is hurting people.

It's narcissistic to assume everybody can do something about it at any given time in their life. I don't believe that is true. Eventually maybe they can, but today they don't want to be fat but also cannot find a way to not be fat.

They almost certainly could in most cases. If they choose not to, that's okay too, but this idea that fat people are all miserable and helpless is wrong and really quite demeaning.

In all honesty, who on here has medical issues because of their weight and how many of those issues will be reduced or go away when then extra weight is gone? I am asking this because most of the people iknow that are obese have a lot of health issues but more physically fit people in my family and friends only have your general wear and tear issues that come with age.

I know my pain will be lessoned with loss of weight but everything else has been rolling since I was a healthy weight. The pain started prior to the weight gain as well but has been severely aggrivated by it. So far not at risk for anything else, had a biometric screening recently and cholesterol, HR, blood pressure, glucose all of it is perfect.

what bothers me the most is people that have excuses....I dont have time to exercise, my back hurts. my feet hurt, I have this and that wrong with me...all bs

Eh, wrong. Not all medical issues are BS. Some individuals actually do have exercise limitations and/or are not allowed to exercise all together.

You're so right...medical issues are for real. I'd love to get out there and walk...I've tried, but the pain is even worse. I'm anxiously awaiting a total of 5 shots to assist the pain medication I'm taking. I'm not fooling myself into thinking I'll be totally pain free, but if this cuts it by half, I'll be in business. In the meantime, I'm doing my darndest to control what I eat. Those of you who don't have medical issues at this point are blessed; but believe me, as you grow older, you'll know firsthand what I'm talking about. Enjoy your youthful bodies while you can, and take good care of them. The ravages of time creep up on you sooner than you think!

I hope you get enough relief from the shots that you are able to go out and walk!! Even if it's only for a couple minutes. Something is better than nothing, right?! Best of luck!

Thank you, Sweetie! I appreciate it! To all of you who have medical issues, I'm hoping you find relief, too! It's very difficult when you have more than one demon to slay at a time, but don't give up; there's got to be some help out there somewhere!

For those feeling insulted by people arguing for basic energy principals and for making the changes needed, you need to read the thread again.....I just did, all I saw was a few dismissing the hard work and obstacles overcame by some successful people as "luck". The condescending and excuses are insane.

Want to understand BMR...

http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/004/m2845e/m2845e00.htm

And

http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5686e/y5686e07.htm

From the second link....

"Extremes of low and high PALs. Extremely low levels of energy expenditure allow for survival, but they are not compatible with long-term health, moving around freely, or earning a living. Such levels have been reported, for example, in elderly mental patients (Prentice et al., 1989), adolescents with cerebral palsy or myelodysplasia (Bandini et al., 1991) and resting adults confined to a whole body calorimeter (Ravussin et al., 1991; Schulz et al., 1992). The mean PAL of 1.21, which is similar to the baseline energy need of 1.27 estimated in the 1985 report, is suggested for short-term survival of totally inactive dependent people in conditions of crisis (WHO, 1985). The present consultation felt that such a value is too low and should not be used in emergency relief programmes, as people are not completely inactive in situations of crisis and the various stresses that impinge on them may increase their energy demands. The consultation hence suggests that food supplies to satisfy a PAL of 1.40, which represents the lower limit of the sedentary lifestyle range shown in Table 5.3, would be more appropriate for short-term relief interventions.

At the other end of the scale, studies have shown PAL values as high as 4.5 to 4.7 during three weeks of competitive cycling (Westerterp et al., 1986), or hauling sleds across the Arctic (Stroud, Coward and Sawyer, 1993). However, such levels of energy expenditure are not sustainable in the long term."


Yes meds and medical conditions can effect BMR and TDEE (energy and appetite) but not to the point of defying the laws of physics.... EVER. Otherwise we would have a cure for world hunger and starvation.

As for the OP, are most fat by choice.... I believe yes but not necessarily a conscience decision. The mental attitude and balance are most likely the most important parts to weight loss. When someone deals with any mental issues (medical diagnosis) or blocks they have the rest is just the desire, will and effort to meet their goals.

I find it really funny when some argue points without proof and don't realize they are arguing with someone working in the field they are arguing about.

As for the person with a BMR of 900, if you got out of bed and moved around your TDEE would have been about 1400-1600 so if you ate 1200 you would have had a 300 calorie deficient and lost weight. Also just looking at the math to maintain organs, unless you were 100lbs or less your BMR was NOT 900 and you TDEE definitely wasn't.... TDEE is the number to eat under to lose weight.....if your going to argue know the definitions. You could eat BMR and lose weight if you got out of bed and peed a few times a day.

If I am wrong (which happens:grumble: don't tell my husband :noway: ) your medical reports should be sent to the WHO asap, they could maybe use the info to help people in starving areas subsist and remain healthy at a lower caloric intake.

If I am wrong (which happens:grumble: don't tell my husband :noway: ) your medical reports should be sent to the WHO asap, they could maybe use the info to help people in starving areas subsist and remain healthy at a lower caloric intake.

Well, therein lies the fallicy "subsit and REMAIN HEALTHY". Yeah, no one's arguing that while those symptomes were happening that they were healthy. At the point in time that I had gained quickly I was in renal failure. I don't think even in starving areas they want to gain weight only to die because their kidneys and adrenal glands aren't working.