Are fat people just lazy and make excuses?
Replies
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We have made a major point of Fat Acceptance & once we crossed that threshold , it's a different world. Walmart is selling clothing in size 4x & size 5x --- these ppl aren't considered FAT but just a little bigger.
There was a time when things were different but now being overweight is socially acceptable.
We apparently live in different worlds. This is not at all true to my experience.1 -
I gained weight for the following reasons:
a. I like food and I can overeat in a hot minute.
b. I had a medical condition that made me fatigued, weakened my bones, gave me stress fractures, muscle weakness, kidney issues, constant migraines, digestive issues, and anxiety, just to name a few symptoms.
The good news:
a. I had surgery to correct the medical issues, and 98% of those symptoms have disappeared.
b. I can now exercise without having to take a three to four day break for DOMS, or worry about more broken bones.
The bad news:
I like food and can overeat in a hot minute.
Knowing this, I track what I eat, eat what I like, and exercise.2 -
I don't think lazyness is the culprit..I've lost a lot of weight while doing 0 additional exercise..also 90% of my non-work time is spent sitting...ALSO, sometimes I'm too lazy to get up to eat, so if anything, lazyness has helped with weight loss..
My point is, weight isn't lost by exercising it away, it's lost by NOT eating calories..so go ahead and be lazy, just watch what you eat and you should still lose weight2 -
When I was first fat it was more because I was young and ignorant of what made me fat. I gained knowledge and lost the weight.
However, later on i gained weight and got fat again and remained so and it was because I was lazy and I made excuses.1 -
I personally dont gain or benefit from a person being too lazy to not lose weight. So I dont care.
I also lose most of my weight via diet- very little "exercise"....is this aka "lazy"?
Im lazy quite often - when I can be, I WILL BE. LOL. But thats not why Im overweight.
Im tired all the time as a working mom of 3. Thats my REASON for being tired, its not my EXCUSE for not doing the laundry or getting on the bike. The excuse is really because I dont want to and would rather do other things.
There really isnt an "excuse" for eating above maintenance.
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No not necessarily. It also depends on how you define 'lazy.' As someone else mentioned there are a lot of obese individuals that do work, school, household management, etc. Many people just are prioritizing things over their health. Also, I was a heavy kid, that turned into a heavy teen and then to a heavy adult. I was active and danced and then played soccer as a teen and then lifted and worked out daily, I also had a full time job from 16 on and was doing full time school (HS and undergrad). The problem was--I was eating too much. The shame of being fat led me to binge eat in private. Despite being really heavy (up until 2010-2012 when I lost a significant amount of weight), I was never lazy. I think a lot of people get heavy from bad eating, not necessarily from being inactive. I do think that as you get heavier and don't fuel your body with quality foods, then your energy sucks and it becomes harder to be active. I think the stereotype of fat=lazy needs to go away. I also know a lot of lazy people that aren't heavy at all. Laziness is not correlated to size.3
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Therealobi1 wrote: »salembambi wrote: »seeing former fatties talking crap about fat people is just the best thing
oh i just love seeing their self righteousness ooozzze all over
actually most people who have posted, have posted about their own experience
actually i was talking in a very general way of what i have witnessed on mfp and in real life1 -
afatpersonwholikesfood wrote: »so I read the rest of the responses and mostly yes...people here who were fat or are currently losing admit it we were lazy and made excuses.
Lazy being not making the changes required to lose the weight.
You can work 60-80 hours a week and be lazy
You can have an immaculate house and be lazy
Lazy is defined as "unwilling to work or use energy."...
losing weight requires energy put forth into that area.
Imagine investing a great deal of time, money, blood, sweat, and tears into a business. You do well and feel on top of the world. You're the most popular place in town for awhile. Time passes, and for reasons that you won't understand until later, that business slowly goes under.
So, you build again a few years later. Once again, your business reaches a certain status. Maybe you do too well. Maybe you take things for granted. Maybe you blow too much corporate money on blow. For reasons that you somewhat understand, it collapses.
A few more years pass, and you invest everything that's left. You're wildly successful for a time. You make more money than you ever have despite having more debts than you ever had. A mix of old and new problems surface, and in your frustration, before the business has a chance to properly fail, you set fire to the place in a moment of insanity. Now you're deeper in debt than ever.
Even your closest friends and family tell you that perhaps you just aren't cut out to be a business owner. They look at you differently. They're a bit horrified by the torching of the last business though most of them have the good sense not to say so. For the first time, they accept you as a penniless fry cook at your local burger joint instead of urging you to follow your dreams - both a relief and a source of great sadness.
You have no faith in your ability to maintain a business beyond the 2-year mark. Even if you did, you've long since used up all your capital. You spend the next 7 years just being. Things, outside of not being a business owner, actually go amazingly well. Still, you have an insane amount of debt. It weighs on you every second of every day. You know it's going to bury you, but your job at the local burger joint isn't going to cover it.
It's okay until it's not okay. Secretly, with almost no hope and just a humble desire to make a small dent in that debt, with money that you are quite convinced you will never see again, you begin to build a 4th business. Not enough time has passed to determine whether this business will make it for the rest of your life. You keep going each day, but you're still scared that a future version of you will burn everything to the ground. You do have a kind of grim determination that you've never had before, but you're certainly not going to climb onto any high horses.
Does "lazy" fit?
Just for some perspective since I realize that everyone is on MFP for different reasons and from different fitness/BMI backgrounds.
@afatpersonwholikesfood not sure what this story has to do with what I said. It''s not about weight it's about a persons ability to be success at being a business owner.
You're not into parables and "the moral of the story" then? It was actually pretty excellent writing, gave me goose bumps and everything. Read it again5 -
Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences and thoughts! I think it really helps open up perspective!
Anyways, I also wanted to share my thoughts, what I've read, and personal experience in response to those who believe why people are fat or lazy or make excuses.
First of all, on a physiological level, people are fat simply because they eat more than they burn. However humans are complex creatures in regards to how we behave, how we feel, and how we view and are affected by our relationship with food, the environment, or other people. When was the last time you told an overweight person, "Hey! Eat less than you burn," and then it became the only singular piece of advice they ever needed. Then they come back to you 50 pounds lighter saying, "Thanks for the magical words of wisdom!" While eat less than you burn is true, the statement alone is typically ineffective at reaching people. There are environmental, biological, and psychological factors that contribute significantly to why someone may be overweight.
If you live in America, look around your environment. There are endless ads that market processed food. Access to processed food is also incredibly easy and cheap as well (vending machines, 24 hour convenience stores). You don't see an apple in a vending machine. Cookies, candy, and chips are covered in beautifully decorated wrapping that look irresistibly delicious. What looks more appetizing, a cookie decorated in gorgeous wrapping or the celery in the produce aisle covered in dirt. There's even a meme on the Internet, " I choked on a carrot this afternoon and all I could think was 'bet a doughnut wouldn't have done this to me.'" If you don't believe that environment affects you, go to a library. EVERYONE is quiet. I bet if you behaved in the library like you did in a night club, the old librarian behind the counter would beat your head in with a cane or you"ll get shushes and death stares from everyone.
Biologically, overweight people tend to store energy better than they burn. This was great during the caveman days when you didn't know when your next meal came. This body type would be better at storing energy for times of famine and clod weather. Nowadays, not so much if you're trying to burn calories. Meanwhile, the thin body type may be great at burning calories but sucks at storing them; not good during caveman days but good now if you want to be thin. CICO still holds true, but for the body type that's more efficenct at storing calories, it's just harder.
Psychological factors are huge. People just don't decide one day, "I'm big boned so i'll always be fat!" More likely, they've made attempts at losing weight but may have gotten incorrect advice and information from well meaning friends, family or other sources. Each small bout of disappointment leads to another discouraging bout of disappointment and leads them to truly believe they are truly incapable of fat loss. In other words, the little things add up.
There will always be competing motivations to meet more basic needs such as shelter and security. Instead of judging people for their excuses, it helps to understand WHY they make those excuses.
Why don't you exercise? "Cuz I'm always tired and have no time."
Why are you tired and have no time? "Cuz I work 12 hour days 7 days a week."
Why are you working so hard? "Because I want to put a roof up for my family and put my kid through school."
The person above has competing motivations. Fat loss at this time takes a step back to providing shelter to family.
To summarize, it saddens me when overweight people are called lazy and make excuses. People have not taken the time to understand the person's individual situation with compassion or kindness. Instead they just judge them harshly, criticize them, and overlook the psychological, emotional, biological, and social factors at play.
But overall, I truly appreciate the insightful responses in this thread!8 -
OMG, I choked on a carrot, too!!! Was sitting on a couch hanging out with family and eating a salad. Started choking on a sliver of carrot from the salad, stuck my finger down my throat and got it out
When I was fat I was putting in lots of hours at work. Knew I needed to exercise but just never got it done. I'd say I was lazy in that regard. But I can understand what people are saying about priorities because I actually cut back on work to start exercising.
I did magically come back dozens of pounds lighter after learning that it was all about calories0 -
When I was morbidly obese, I would say I was kind of lazy, sometimes. I was nowhere near as active as I am now (at a healthy weight now) and it was partially due to laziness and partially because it was physically harder for me to be active, and I would get discouraged and give up, or give up because I felt self conscious and uncomfortable. But I was fat mostly because I had zero self control when it came to food.
I was miserable in my body, yet at the same time was full of excuses and seriously lacking in motivation and willpower.0 -
I don't think anyone telling anyone anything about weight loss is going to motivate them to do it, normally. I do think the realization "oh, it's really just about burning more than I take in, totally in my control" can spark something in someone so they can and do lose weight, but it's not about information coming in from outside, but them being in the frame of mind to seek it and hear it. One thing that helped me was a friend telling me "if you don't like how much you weigh, why not lose weight" which sparked the rather obvious thought "you know, it is something I can do, not just something that happens to me."
I also used work as an excuse (for me, not saying it was for others) not to lose weight, but when I thought about it my co-workers were mostly not overweight, even those who worked as much -- that also helped me realize I had the control, but it was something I had to realize for myself. And I had to figure out how to balance and to some extent re-prioritize.
"Processed food" was never an issue for me, and I really hate "processed" being used as a synonym for high cal and low nutrient as in fact it's all over the place. I had a really healthy wrap from Pret yesterday that fit in my calories and nutrition goals well -- that was processed, but so what? I also disagree that food packaging is wildly tempting. More tempting may be the food (and most supermarket packaged stuff really isn't, to me, although the cannolis from an Italian bakery that a co-worker brought in today, yeah, tempting. No more processed than the Pret wrap, more like something I'd make at home (if I weren't too lazy), but tempting. (It was 100% my choice whether to eat one or not, and yes I did.)
Maybe I'm weird, but I also think that supermarket produce (and certainly green market/farmer's market produce) looks tempting and delicious too. Maybe it looks worse once you hit the northwestern-ish border of my city. ;-)
More seriously, I don't think people were judging others or calling fat people lazy or excuse-makers for the most part. Some people were talking about themselves, and that's fair.0 -
salembambi wrote: »seeing former fatties talking crap about fat people is just the best thing
oh i just love seeing their self righteousness ooozzze all over
But doesn't it justify itself since they themselves were "fatties"?1 -
afatpersonwholikesfood wrote: »so I read the rest of the responses and mostly yes...people here who were fat or are currently losing admit it we were lazy and made excuses.
Lazy being not making the changes required to lose the weight.
You can work 60-80 hours a week and be lazy
You can have an immaculate house and be lazy
Lazy is defined as "unwilling to work or use energy."...
losing weight requires energy put forth into that area.
Imagine investing a great deal of time, money, blood, sweat, and tears into a business. You do well and feel on top of the world. You're the most popular place in town for awhile. Time passes, and for reasons that you won't understand until later, that business slowly goes under.
So, you build again a few years later. Once again, your business reaches a certain status. Maybe you do too well. Maybe you take things for granted. Maybe you blow too much corporate money on blow. For reasons that you somewhat understand, it collapses.
A few more years pass, and you invest everything that's left. You're wildly successful for a time. You make more money than you ever have despite having more debts than you ever had. A mix of old and new problems surface, and in your frustration, before the business has a chance to properly fail, you set fire to the place in a moment of insanity. Now you're deeper in debt than ever.
Even your closest friends and family tell you that perhaps you just aren't cut out to be a business owner. They look at you differently. They're a bit horrified by the torching of the last business though most of them have the good sense not to say so. For the first time, they accept you as a penniless fry cook at your local burger joint instead of urging you to follow your dreams - both a relief and a source of great sadness.
You have no faith in your ability to maintain a business beyond the 2-year mark. Even if you did, you've long since used up all your capital. You spend the next 7 years just being. Things, outside of not being a business owner, actually go amazingly well. Still, you have an insane amount of debt. It weighs on you every second of every day. You know it's going to bury you, but your job at the local burger joint isn't going to cover it.
It's okay until it's not okay. Secretly, with almost no hope and just a humble desire to make a small dent in that debt, with money that you are quite convinced you will never see again, you begin to build a 4th business. Not enough time has passed to determine whether this business will make it for the rest of your life. You keep going each day, but you're still scared that a future version of you will burn everything to the ground. You do have a kind of grim determination that you've never had before, but you're certainly not going to climb onto any high horses.
Does "lazy" fit?
Just for some perspective since I realize that everyone is on MFP for different reasons and from different fitness/BMI backgrounds.
@afatpersonwholikesfood not sure what this story has to do with what I said. It''s not about weight it's about a persons ability to be success at being a business owner.
You're not into parables and "the moral of the story" then? It was actually pretty excellent writing, gave me goose bumps and everything. Read it again
I am into parables but I already answered the question in my post they quoted when they wrote this. I read it more than once not sure where they were going with it considering I already answered the question...I personally wondered if I am getting baited as my posts are getting flagged for abuse.
I believe that we can all be lazy in aspects of our life. Regardless of what the other parts show.
I was "lazy" about my health and fitness and weight loss but I worked 60 hours a week and had a very clean house and cooked from scratch and crocheted and painted had an active social life and raised a son on my own...and and and...0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I'm not fat. I'm not any more or less lazy than when I was fat; I just prioritize different things.
This is exactly how I feel. I didn't magically have a personality change and stopped being lazy when I lost weight. I didn't mind being fat so it was low on my list of priorities.1 -
It's a touchy subject because no one wants be called lazy. But whatever. Given the number of excuses I see in this thread and elsewhere on MFP, I'd say very often yes. The one exception I see frequently on MFP is those who are suffering from mental health disorders and/or who are using food as a coping mechanism for trauma. I also think the priorities point above makes sense because I found myself in a similar situation of prioritizing work above all else. Even during that time though I could have been taking 30-60 minutes a day to work out and I could have been eating less and better. I still think lazy has/had a lot to do with it.
The real question is do you want people thinking you're lazy and making excuses? You answered that when you started the thread. Why does it bother you? If it does bother you (and it is pretty obvious that it does) then make the changes to your life that are necessary to be fit. Or, just learn to be fat and happy. Either approach puts the onus on you, not everyone else. The only way you can control other people's perceptions of you is to control what you look like and how you behave. You can't control what goes on in their heads.0 -
In some cases it probably is laziness. However, in my case it wasn't general laziness (I work 50-60 hour weeks and go to graduate school in the evenings)but I just had different priorities in my life. I'm not trying to make an excuse--could I have made more time to prepare meals and work out? Absolutely! But I was choosing to spend my time focusing on work and school.
It wasn't until I was diagnosed with cancer a year ago that I started to realized how much more I should be focusing on my health. After I finished treatments I still work long hours and go to school in the evenings, but I've made my health a huge priority since then and I make sure I'm planning my time accordingly so I can meal-plan and exercise within my busy lifestyle.
My point is, I don't think it's fair to say all fat people are lazy (although it's true some are) but others are just choosing to prioritize different things in life.0 -
Lazy can lead to fat.
Fat can lead to lazy.
Is it the only cause? Probably not.
1 snickers bar is easy to eat. I have to jog (not fast walk) on a treadmill for 45 minutes to burn that off.
The rise of ultra calorie dense foods, that taste awesome too, share a significant portion more blame than being lazy and making excuses.
Then we get to health issues. My best friend is obese. She has type 1 diabetes and is asthmatic. So, if she went ahead and wasn't "lazy" and ran on the treadmill, if she managed to still be able to breath, she'd run through her blood sugar and fall into a diabetic coma... unless she continuously ate while on the treadmill.
But there are people like my sisters... "I want McDonalds every day and I will not exercise."
So... its all individual.2 -
Lazy can lead to fat.
Fat can lead to lazy.
Is it the only cause? Probably not.
1 snickers bar is easy to eat. I have to jog (not fast walk) on a treadmill for 45 minutes to burn that off.
The rise of ultra calorie dense foods, that taste awesome too, share a significant portion more blame than being lazy and making excuses.
Then we get to health issues. My best friend is obese. She has type 1 diabetes and is asthmatic. So, if she went ahead and wasn't "lazy" and ran on the treadmill, if she managed to still be able to breath, she'd run through her blood sugar and fall into a diabetic coma... unless she continuously ate while on the treadmill.
But there are people like my sisters... "I want McDonalds every day and I will not exercise."
So... its all individual.
Are you sure that's how diabetes and asthma work?1
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