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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?
Replies
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canadianlbs wrote: »the9thresident wrote: »but tummy ridges and veins popping out is just nasty to me
well, yeah, this actually . . . it's more an aesthetic opinion than a 'health' one, but yeah. segmented bellies are for arthropods. i never see one but it makes me think of crabs and scorpions.
feel like i'm going to win the 'unpopular' race: i know mfp is a niche-interest community, and sure i've turned into a kind of homegrown physio/exercise nerd. but that's entirely confined to my own life. and it's entirely because for some perverse reason i'm enjoying it all. i can't even imagine a day where i'd ever come within a million miles of giving one quadrillionth of a single *kitten* about the kinds of broad topics that appear to dominate the entire lives of many people in there [yeah, i know it probably doesn't really. but still - ? i just can't understand why it's a topic at all].
*feeling brave because i've got a fruit gum supplier lined up*
Wait, am I the supplier?1 -
MJ2victory wrote: »Saw a pic today from 5 years ago from when I was about (oh lort) 70 lbs thinner and remember feeling so awful and fat and like such a failure. I ate junk, tbh. Very small amounts of it - CICO does work but you might be messed up about it if you do it how I did. And, as previously stated, I had horrible ideas like that bc I had gotten myself fat, I deserved to feel physically and mentally horrible. I thought my life would be better when I got thinner and it wasn't bc my focus was wrong. I would have never been thin enough or attractive enough. I see people in these forums (and irl) make statements that sound a lot how I was feeling back then and it's slightly heartbreaking. Maybe I've seemed like a harpy in here but really I'm a big old softie.
I share these opinions, in a debate forum, bc I think they are true for many many people who haven't been able to admit it or haven't realized that there's another option. I want someone to read it and maybe be able to miss out on a little bit of the anguish I put myself through.
I agree with some of what you say here, but I also agree that -- maybe because of your past history -- you are projecting a lot and making assumptions about others that are more about you and your own prior issues, as GottaBurnEm says.
I agree that it's not uncommon for people to approach weight loss as if it must be punishment, and that that's not helpful (normally) or necessary, and actually goes against having a sustainable diet and lasting lifestyle change (if one needs a lifestyle change). That's something that's often discussed in these parts, and warned against, and I think if you actually had read through the whole thread (I know it's long) or the whole Fat Acceptance thread you would see that. Indeed (although I get the feeling you are one of those who weirdly equate CICO with not caring about nutrition), I think you'd see discussion just a few pages ago connected with that with how the CICO folks tend to see understanding that you can eat a normal diet, with the foods you love, and don't have to eat some kind of only chicken and broccoli or only diet foods or only "clean" foods (whatever that means, often it is defined in a really limited way and calling foods dirty or bad is IMO not a healthy attitude for many) to be anti punishment, as is the idea that you can eat a reasonable number of calories, don't have to be super strict and power through it because you should make up for being fat or whatever.
So on those things, I think we have some agreement.
Personally, when I decided to lose weight I knew what a healthy diet was and ate a healthy diet while losing, and not a self-punishing deficit (I did lose quite fast at first when I was very heavy and stopped overeating, and I did find it easy and not self punishing to have a significant deficit, but I was eating volumes of delicious foods which was the only way I could have sustained it -- I know that about myself). I'm also, maybe, lucky, in that what I think of as delicious foods I want to eat are mostly pretty healthy, not especially high cal foods (like vegetables, some roasted chicken -- perfect, delicious meal), and I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new ways to cook. To me this idea that fat people have no clue and cutting calories will mean eating low nutrient foods is itself a pretty nasty stereotype about fat people -- interesting you don't see that.
I also believe -- and I said this early on in the Fat Acceptance thread -- that getting to a place where I didn't hate myself (which didn't really have that much to do with being overweight -- I wasn't fat or even overweight at all growing up or in my 20s, although I was never happy with my body and sometimes thought I was fat, because I'm female and in the world I live in that's common), made me MORE able to take steps to improve myself and do what I wanted to do (which for me, when I was fat, was to lose the weight). I don't at all agree that being okay with being yourself means you won't want to make positive changes, and I don't think feeling shame or self hatred for being fat is helpful at all. I also found it helpful at one point -- to some degree, in part because I was not confident I'd be able to lose weight given that I'd not had a history with dieting and even though I mentally understood how it worked I still was convinced emotionally it would not work for me -- to focus on being as healthy as I could be, eating well, not emotionally eating, especially getting active again. So I get that approach, although of course as expected (at least by anyone looking in from outside) I did lose, easily, because my calories were lower than my TDEE by quite a bit (without that being self-punishing, but with me focusing on things that were improving my health).
But where I think you are projecting here, is by saying that no one should consciously admit they want to lose weight or try to, that we should pretend weight has nothing to do with health, that we should pretend we don't care about appearance or other things weight matters for (like how it interferes with physical performance, running, makes lots of activities harder on your body, etc.). For you the mental aspect of those things may be counterproductive and you may still be at a stage where saying you don't care how much you weigh is helpful for you (and maybe that's true and will always be true). That's fine, and I'm glad you are happy with where you are. But if others find it helpful to say "I dislike being fat and am disappointed with myself for getting fat" or even just "I want to lose weight, I'd feel better in some ways if I were thinner," that doesn't mean they are sad or hate themselves or are unhealthy in their approach. That's the flip side (and equally wrong) as those who say that if you don't hate yourself or feel shame (and I don't and didn't when I finally decided to lose in early 2014) you won't bother losing weight. That's absurd, but so is the idea that wanting to lose weight is disordered or wrong. You can want to lose weight, admit that being obese is unhealthy or that for you (not you, but me and some others) you find it less attractive for you or whatever and choose to lose without it being about self hatred.
At the moment my hair badly needs to be cut and styled -- I've been neglecting it because I dislike bothering to go to my hair place and because I've been busy -- and so I think I would look a lot better if I took care of that. That's not self hatred, and no one says it's disordered not to just love the hair I have all grown out however and in a ponytail. Why is caring about my weight or fitness level or the like different?9 -
StealthHealth wrote: »kristikitter wrote: »
- I think enforced PE at school is TOTALLY pointless - half-hearted basketball for 50 minutes accomplishes nothing, and no, I don't think it's "better than nothing". Kids can eat back those calories in a breaktime snack.
That is (IMHO) a really god point that you rarely see expressed. I'm very into health and fitness and use the gym regularly as well as many physical activities and pastimes (reluctant to call them sports) outside the gym - But as a child and early teen I hated PE at school, which for a British boy in the late 70s/early 80s consisted of Football, Rugby, Cricket, and Athletics. All, of which I was pretty hopeless at.
Luckily, I was into cycling (as a form of transport and freedom) and martial arts (as a sport and self defence) and so they were my activities.
I hated it as a kid, when we'd go play some team thing. In junior high there was the nightmare of the changing room and showers, but we'd go from activity to activity, so for some I enjoyed it (running or gymnastics or tennis) and others I hated (anything involving a ball other than tennis). We also had some academic stuff we had to learn that I barely recall -- I wish that had been incorporated more and I'd had a better understanding. (I was active outside of school, so it made no difference to physical fitness, but I do think we were exposed to a decent amount of different things. I still mostly hated it -- I was not confident and having people mad at me because I was bad and screwed up in a sport I hated was a torture.)
In high school we had to do PE for 2 years, but could choose a specific activity. I did swimming mostly (the pain of having to fix my hair after was offset by loving to swim). My sister tried weights and loved it (she was the only girl, this was the '80s), and I wish I'd not been intimidated or just had thought of it, which I don't think I did.1 -
I hear you on the hating it. I've got hand-eye and motor-coordination issues. They were caught in preschool and I got therapy for them, but it's fair to say that they're managed to the point where I don't need special accommodation for them, but I'm not very athletic and probably never will be. And that's okay. I also have horrible handwriting; teachers were asking me to get longer assignments typed when I was in 5th grade in 1982-3 (i.e., before home computers became commonplace). My problems were:
- We all tend to gravitate toward what we're good at. In my case, that wasn't gym class.
- I was already the kid everyone picked on (introverted, socially-awkward bookworm). Not being good at sports was just one more 'reason' to make fun of me. When you're four or five, and kids are laughing at you because you run awkwardly, mostly because you know that if you go too fast, you're likely to trip over your own feet... how comfortable are you likely to be with running?
- A lot of the therapy involved physical drills and my parents made me do them, even though I got frustrated by failure and hated them.
To me, whether you called it gym, sports, fitness, or whatever, it was an area where I could never even put in a decent showing, much less shine, and as soon as the class became optional, I dropped it. Didn't need the frustration. Didn't see much real progress in my abilities. By the time I learned to dribble a basketball across the gym, everyone else was at the point where you try to get the ball away from the other players. And, see above, I was usually getting picked on. Plus I really wasn't much at evasive action so getting the ball away from me was like taking candy from a baby...
I'm not surprised I ended up mostly sedentary. Or that I ended up taking comfort in food and eating out of stress or boredom. I'm mostly trying to shed a lot of that baggage with the extra pounds. And stop beating myself up when I have occasional lapses.5 -
Heck I was a gymnast but high school PE was not my thing at all. Very often it was outside in the freezing cold playing hockey or athletics. I just wasn't fussed. Add onto that I wasn't one of the cool kids and I would also get picked last.
So there are a lot of people who think they hate exercise and sport because of horrible school experiences.4 -
The easy way out on fad diets will get you no where! Eating less food under 1200 calories will do harm. And thinking you can be lazy and not get any form of exercise won't help your health. In other words, change your lifestyle! The easy fix won't get you where you want to be. It is only temporary fix and will do more harm than better.0
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kristikitter wrote: »
- I think if people take a weigh-in class (Slimming World, whatever), I don't think they should take food in and eat it after weighing in - food isn't something to withhold and then pig out on once you see a number on the scale for that week. If you are doing this, you have learned nothing about how to eat.
But, if their weight is dropping at something resembling a regular healthy rate (via trend, not necessarily each and every week), it's obviously working. It's no different (at least, not really/necessarily) than one that weighs in the morning after using the bathroom - then eats breakfast.
That said, if the weight isn't moving, then no.
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cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »This whole argument ties into my belief that there are two kinds of people in the world. Victims and Just-Get-On-With-It types.
We see it all the time on these forums and I know we all see it a hundred times a day IRL too.
The former hangs on to the past (past hurts/past events/past perceived injustices) and the latter looks to the next thing and how they can contribute in a meaningful, helpful way.
You can live in fear or live in faith - pick a side carefully.
Some people truly are victims though and deserve care and therapy to put the pieces of their lives back together. Even if they tried to just get on with it, they'd end up mentally ill through repressing and failing to deal with their past traumas. I think your opinion is too dismissive of trauma and doesn't recognise the impact it can have on a person's physical and mental health.
Everyone has (PAST) trauma.
Would you care to play, "My trauma is worse than your trauma?" I'm pretty sure I could hold my own in that.
My point is that the world goes forward, not backward. It's okay to have moments of sadness and grief and fear, but to then make that your life-view is tragic and a slap in the face to the rest of us who do deal with our pasts and do move on.
A tragic/scary/horrible event does not have to define anyone's life. Sure, they will continue to get triggered every now and then, but to give into those fears gives the PAST power. There is no power in the past. It is an illusion.
Hmmm I honestly don't think you could "hold your own" because it is clear you have zero understanding of trauma and absolutely no empathy for sufferers of PTSD. "Moments of sadness, grief and fear" indeed!
I am not going to go toe-to-toe with you about my trauma vs anyone else's. I have empathy, but there is a way out. I hope you find it.
Then why make the offer? Did I call you on a bluff? Lol. Poor you. You are too funny.
ha. You first. List your trauma(s).
C'mon, this isn't the place to have a therapy session. There are many sites for anxiety/depression/PTSD whatever you want to call it. There is plenty of help out there, but the healing comes from within. There is no reason to live in the past. None.
I stand by my point that rehashing past stuff ad infinitum and using it as an excuse for remaining a victim is the weak approach. Personal power is found in hope, overcoming, faith, and joy.
Me first? When you are the one that suggested this ridiculous thing in the first place. How about I say one trauma for your one equal trauma and we go until the other one runs out. Please note I am ex-military and served in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan so you may want to reconsider before hearing my war stories.
But before we even get to that, I survived an IRA terrorist bomb at age 7. Your turn.
Too I never said I was all poor me and such. I said "people with PTSD" and how they need time to pick up the pieces of their life and deserve empathy and u serstanding while they do that. I bet you've never mopped up the brains of one of your soldiers whose shot himself in the toliet rather than face another tour....but wait now I've told you two traumas. Darn it. Anyway your turn.
I'm really unclear on what you think this sort of post is going to accomplish.
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suzannesimmons3 wrote: »Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.
I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course
I might know someone, ahem, who smuggled Kinder Surprises into the States earlier this year. Ahem.4 -
suzannesimmons3 wrote: »Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.
I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course
If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »suzannesimmons3 wrote: »Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.
I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course
I might know someone, ahem, who smuggled Kinder Surprises into the States earlier this year. Ahem.
Apparently a way has been discovered to legally and overtly import them for commercial sale. I saw an article on the subject earlier this year.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Heck I was a gymnast but high school PE was not my thing at all. Very often it was outside in the freezing cold playing hockey or athletics. I just wasn't fussed. Add onto that I wasn't one of the cool kids and I would also get picked last.
So there are a lot of people who think they hate exercise and sport because of horrible school experiences.
Me, too, except I was an equestrian. I was apparently very lucky. My sophomore and senior year of high school I was allowed to get credit for the hours I spent training instead of PE (or marching band which also counted as PE credit and was what I'd been doing the previous two years).
And yes, I pretty much hated PE - though looking back I am glad that I got to try a bunch of different sports and games. And we did have days I enjoyed. What I hated was that if you were not good at something (and that'd be most sports for me), there was no effort to get better and no time to do it anyway. No coaching helps you improve much at an activity you only do for a couple of days at a stretch.
I liked PE in college much better. Pick a sport that seems interesting, take a semester to learn it and figure out if it's something you can learn to do, change to something else next semester if it's not for you.1 -
suzannesimmons3 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »Big is beautiful...(when said about obese people)
No it's not... It's heart disease, liver disease and many other illnesses breeding inside you because you can't control your cravings.
This isn't a dig it's a fact.
Those that are on here that are obese I would assume are here to improve themselves and to them I say I salute you.
To those that choose to continue without change, I am disturbed by you and your lack of love for the only body you'll ever have.
a.) plenty of fat ppl don't get those issues and plenty of thin people do... you know that. Why oversimplify?
b.) you can be disturbed all you want but I agree with you that the habits and behaviors that got them/us fat probably have to do with a lack of self love. Ergo, step 1 is finding yourself beautiful and lovable and step 2 is deciding that that means you're worth the work it takes to food prep, the work it takes to say no to excess food, it's all hard work. And if you don't first believe you're worth it... how do you ever love yourself enough to do it??? Sure, some people get stuck on step 1 and that may be a problem for them and possible others... but that doesn't mean it's not an important step.
Plenty smokers never get lung cancer.
is that perhaps why you don't see people *kitten* on smokers the way they do on fat people?
You haven't been around many smokers then. Or haven't seen any cigarette packages in the past years.
Honestly, as a nonsmoker, I think that there's a fair amount of overreach... and it's one of the reasons I'm so vigorous about resisting the idea that the solution is more labelling.
The label could say "Hey moron, smoking is bad for you, you could get cancer or emphysema."
Instead, they now say "If you smoke another cigarette, you'll die tomorrow" or some comparable woo that makes the warning label less than useless.
It's been a while since I've seen one (quit smoking a long time ago). Did they change them to make them more dramatic? The ones I remember were like "Quitting smoking greatly reduces your health risk" or something like that. And another one about smoking being associated with low birth weight for infants.
Clearly they made a huge impression on me.
They now tell men their little friend could stop working
With a droopy cigarette in the image.
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suzannesimmons3 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »suzannesimmons3 wrote: »Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.
I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course
If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.
American or Canadian $
Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM
I apologize....
OH, and US.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »suzannesimmons3 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »suzannesimmons3 wrote: »Psst. ....all you sugar addicts.
I can supply all sorts of British goodies. ...for the right price of course
If you can get Lion Bars for less than $2.50 each delivered we might be able to find an arrangement.
American or Canadian $
Oh!!! Amazon price has gone down since the last time I checked, they're down to 1.15. MMMMM
I apologize....
OH, and US.
I don't know what any of these yummies are.
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MJ2victory wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »jseams1234 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »ok I'm ready to weigh in on this (hahaha I crack myself up). Here are my unpopular opinions:
1. Weighing daily is unhealthy. (not to say it isn't tempting)
2. Weight loss should not be your objective. It's a side affect of making healthier choices.
3. Mental health is just as important as physical health (if not more).
4. If you lose weight bc you hate yourself, you will still hate yourself at your goal weight and you WILL gain it back.
Sometimes, losing weight (in and of itself) is the best thing a person can do for their health.
not if they're going to immediately gain it back because they didn't deal with their relationship with food and the emotional baggage that may have caused them to gain the weight.
Who says they didn't deal with those issues as a means to the goal of losing weight?
like I said in my original post: my opinion is that weight loss should be a byproduct, not the goal. The goal is to feel better, be more physically able, not eat emotionally, love yourself, etc. Weight is just your relationship with gravity. If you make lifestyle changes, you may lose weight, but it's about the weakest measurement of health.
Obesity is detrimental to physical health. It's hardly a weak measurement of health. If a person is obese and they have an unhealthy relationship with food, then yes they need to deal with that unhealthy relationship in order to achieve the goal of overcoming obesity because obesity kills.
What a ridiculous oversimplification. There is a correlation between obesity and some illnesses. And do you remember what was talked about in high school about the dangers of assuming causation vs correlation?
No, obesity has been proven to CAUSE deaths. In 2015 four MILLION people died worldwide due to excess body weight. You'd really tout a high school lecture on correlation vs. causation as the authority trumping thousands of scientists and doctors worldwide? The science is very clear that obesity kills. You're deluded if you just think "weight is your relationship with gravity" and nothing more.
you can think my argument is stupid or disagree with me but no scientist is going to say that obesity causes death. Show me that article. They all say it's linked or it can lead to a cause of death. Your weight is the result of over eating and/or a sedentary lifestyle. Overeating and/or a sedentary lifestyle? leads to excess weight. leads to several causes of death. Obesity doesn't literally kill you.
Any scientist would disagree with you. Being too large for your organs and primary systems to sustain life fulfills all the criteria of a repeatable and provable fact.
Per NIH obesity and overweight together are the second leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.
Where did The National Institute of Health print that? All I can find in a website claiming they said that but no proof.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2016-07-14-obesity-now-a-leading-cause-of-death-especially-in-men/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12230315
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-extreme-obesity-may-shorten-life-expectancy-14-years
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790820/
1. correlation study
2. says "linked" not causes death
3. says "may shorten" and is once again correlation
4. says it is a "risk factor" not causes death
You are playing a semantic game to support an unreasonable position. Obesity is not a disease, but a physical state, as such is not singularly tracked. Perhaps you need to further study the semantic use of "linked", "correlation", "causation", and "risk" in these reports.
This is akin to stating that no one starves to death, but their organs eventually fail and that lack of nutrients poses a higher risk factor to those starving. The end point is still premature death, regardless of your semantics.
Curious - if so adamant with the notion that being obese is perfectly healthy then why did you join MFP?
So perhaps what we're learning is that my most unpopular opinion is that words matter.
I never said that being obese is "perfectly healthy" but I do think that fixation on weight is unhealthy.
I joined MFP to be more conscientious of what I'm eating to avoid instances of overeating. Because although overeating makes me sick, it is pleasant in the moment and can be a mindless habit. I've decided that I deserve to feel well and want to take steps to do so. As I've stated before, weight loss may end up being a byproduct of making more sensible choices but is not my aim.
It's great that you've decided to take charge of your own diet/eating and your own health. It's even fine that weight loss is not your goal, just as it's fine that you feel that obesity is not necessarily unhealthy for many people and that people should love themselves, no matter what body they happen to inhabit.
Just because these ideas support your view of the world and work well for you does not mean that they are indeed based in fact or that they are a good idea for other people. I agree that a fixation on weight isn't optimally healthy, but in previous comments you seemed to imply that anyone who wants to lose weight for the sake of losing weight (in and of itself) is somehow unhealthy. It seems like you make a lot of judgments about others based on what works for you, and that's why you're getting so much push back.
Do what works for you and in all sincerity, I hope that you have great success with whatever your goals are! Just remember that what works for YOU is not necessarily what anyone else needs/wants.
Thank you! I am already feeling a lot better and able to learn from past mistakes.
Saw a pic today from 5 years ago from when I was about (oh lort) 70 lbs thinner and remember feeling so awful and fat and like such a failure. I ate junk, tbh. Very small amounts of it - CICO does work but you might be messed up about it if you do it how I did. And, as previously stated, I had horrible ideas like that bc I had gotten myself fat, I deserved to feel physically and mentally horrible. I thought my life would be better when I got thinner and it wasn't bc my focus was wrong. I would have never been thin enough or attractive enough. I see people in these forums (and irl) make statements that sound a lot how I was feeling back then and it's slightly heartbreaking. Maybe I've seemed like a harpy in here but really I'm a big old softie.
I share these opinions, in a debate forum, bc I think they are true for many many people who haven't been able to admit it or haven't realized that there's another option. I want someone to read it and maybe be able to miss out on a little bit of the anguish I put myself through.
It is good that you recognize that these self hating thoughts were horrible ideas. Your mental attitude makes all the difference and any act of improvement is an inherent act of love. Simply put - we don't invest valuable time and energy into things we hate, we avoid those. We certainly invest everything into things we love, hence self improvement is ultimately an act of love. Hate the sin, love the sinner. It all boils down to behavior, no point in personalizing this.
...and I think it's wonderful that you have joined and equally wonderful the progress you have made.4
This discussion has been closed.
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