Are fat people just lazy and make excuses?

I am still fat but i am not lazy. I like to eat. I exercise 5 days a week. I continue to work at losing weight. I agree with the poster that said fat and thin people can be lazy1

critterbug15 wrote: »

I really like a lot of articles on Peter Attia's site. It was very helpful in understanding why I was starving after eating a meal and why I wasn't losing weight even on low calories with high energy expenditure. I have come to strongly understand his answer to this very question: http://eatingacademy.com/quick-faq#fat-lazy

To add, because I found the article I was thinking of that goes into greater detail... quoted below...

"...overweight people are not the lazy, constantly grazing, weak-willed individuals many in the mainstream have led us to believe. They just eat the wrong foods (rather than simply too much food).

Remember, I was one of those doctors in the mainstream once upon a time. While I always tried (and hopefully succeeded most of the time) to treat overweight patients with respect, I silently judged them. Why can’t you just eat less and exercise more? Only when I realized, despite my diet which rigorously adhered to formal recommendations and my 3 to 4 hours of exercise per day, that even I was getting too fat for comfort, did I begin to question the Conventional Wisdom of why we get fat. Of course, not everyone (fortunately) was born with my level of genetic susceptibility to insulin resistance (stated another way, not everyone is born with my level of carbohydrate sensitivity). In my experience, about 10-20% of the population (my lucky wife included) seem resistant to carbohydrates and maintain exquisite insulin sensitivity, almost independent of diet. Roughly 30-40% of the population are, conversely, very sensitive to carbohydrates and appear to be quite insulin resistant until nearly the last gram of sugar and most carbohydrates are removed from their diets. Then there is the rest of population, which includes me. To varying degrees, we’re somewhere between these two groups."
eatingacademy.com/nutrition/if-low-carb-eating-is-so-effective-why-are-people-still-overweight

One more quote from the article:

"Why is horizontal growth (i.e., obesity) different? I, and many others, argue that unregulated horizontal growth is also regulated by a hormone – insulin. In both cases – growing vertically or growing horizontally – the responsible hormone drives (literally induces) the person to eat more than they burn. The fellow on the left in the figure below (nearly 9 feet tall) ate a lot to get that tall, but he did not get that tall because of eating too much. He got that tall because he had too much of a certain hormone that drove him to over-eat relative to what he was able to burn. The medical establishment tells us the girl on the right got to be that size because she ate too much. Wrong. She ate too much (relative to her energy expenditure) because she had too much of a different hormone – insulin – driving her to eat too much."

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I can't speak for others but I was almost 50lbs overweight I was lazy and I did make a TON of excuses (too tired, it's late, I'll start tomorrow, it's raining, it's too hot, this is just what happens when you get older, etc).

All I needed was a little spark, I joined a biggest loser contest at work and my competitive spirit took over. I won that, got back to my high school size and ever since have been trying to gain weight (muscle). Now I still am lazy, but in different ways like when it comes to doing laundry or dishes...

When I first started reading this thread I was worried it was going to go downhill fast. Glad it didn't. I like almost all of the replies so far. Good discussion, OP and I think a few posters have misread and think that either you or other posters were calling overweight people lazy, but that's not the case.

Some posters have confessed to being lazy whether overweight, thin, or somewhere in between. (Raises hand) Count me in that group. I'm lazy. My youngest son is lazy and gets mad at himself for putting off yardwork or laundry and I tell him sorry, you inherited that from me. He tells me I'm not lazy because my house is clean and I workout regularly, but I tell him I work hard to be lazy! I get up early on the weekends and lift at home so that I can be lazy the rest of the day and not feel guilty. I'm also one of those people who will carry ALL the grocery bags into the house in one trip because TWO trips is just too many.

Anyway, OP, when you hear those comments, what is your response? You say they make you said but how about politely responding to those comments with an educated response, such as those that have responded on this thread? Sounds to me the people who make those blanket statements could use a little info and education.

“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found difficult; it has been found difficult and left untried” – G. K. Chesterton. The same could be said of CICO?

I was fat because I wasn't allowed to go to the gym, my ex husband cooked and controlled the meals. If something was left over he was annoyed that we were wasting foods. We went out all the time because he wanted to.

I eventually lost weight by doing intermittent fasting aka starving all day so I could eat what and when he cooked for dinner and still loose weight and be under my tdee. Sucked balls, but oh well. I eventually found a method that would work for my lifestyle and lack of "time" to work out.

Yes he was a prick, yes he is my ex for good reasons. So lazy no, but sometimes there is other reasons to why someone gets/is overweight.

sunflowerhippi wrote: »

I was fat because I wasn't allowed to go to the gym, my ex husband cooked and controlled the meals. If something was left over he was annoyed that we were wasting foods. We went out all the time because he wanted to.

I eventually lost weight by doing intermittent fasting aka starving all day so I could eat what and when he cooked for dinner and still loose weight and be under my tdee. Sucked balls, but oh well. I eventually found a method that would work for my lifestyle and lack of "time" to work out.

Yes he was a prick, yes he is my ex for good reasons. So lazy no, but sometimes there is other reasons to why someone gets/is overweight.

See a lot of people would see the bolded as an excuse. Lots here don't go to gyms (I don't).

Some would see it as a valid reason because of the "ex" being of a controlling nature.

I said that at one point to...I had an ex who got mad when I would go to the gym and yup I got fat again...I was lazy about it. I didn't try and figure out a way to keep the weight off and keep him happy. I was lazy....made excuses.

Glad you got your situation under wraps.

and another poster mentioned that they work hard to be lazy...that's a great statement...that's me now. I love being lazy...love it.

So I work hard to ensure I have lazy times...it's great..

I think it's more of a lack of discipline than laziness. Every morning I get up at 6 and go to the gym and run 4-5 miles, then walk whatever amount of time It takes for a full 60 minutes of exercise. Every morning I hate getting up, but it takes discipline to make this weight loss goal I set for myself.

As a fat person, I can attest that I am far from lazy. I have struggled with my weight my whole life, and I'm finally making progress towards becoming healthy! But it's not been laziness that ever made me fat.

I think some fat people are lazy. Some thin people are lazy, too. There are a lot of factors that contribute to behavior that leads to fatness, but laziness isn't the first I'd jump to.

ilex70 wrote: »

I wouldn't say that.

I would say that "fat people"-

*do not want to change as much as they want to stay in their current comfort zone
*want to change, but are working with bad information
*are struggling with life situations, physical limitations, and/or mental health problems that make weight maintenance difficult, or just not as much of a priority. Because when the house is on fire who gives a damn about dirty dishes in the sink?

I was lazy at nutrition, not exercise. I struggled with the life situations that made me "survival eat", as in not plan healthy meals but just eat any old junk by the boatload to fill the void. Everyone else came first, every crisis came first. I exercised daily and stupidly wondered why I saw no results. Believe me, plyo at 208 lbs sucks.

Yes there are some who can't lose weight due to medical problems. Then there are plenty who use every excuse in the book to not even try. Got a family? Great! Lose weight and you can spend more time and energy on them. Got a job? School? Work around it.

Sorry if I sound preachy, but I learned through my journey that to help others I gotta help myself first. Start small but just do something, and you don't have to be perfect.