[quote]Grneyes wrote:
[quote]MementoMori wrote:
[quote]Grneyes wrote:
I have to say, as someone who is considered medically obese at 5’7 and 165 lbs, I am not happy with the way I look. I’ve been underweight my whole life. I weighed around…110-115 when I graduated high school, I looked like an anorexic or concentration camp survivor. I believe the term is “skinny fat.” Since then I have been monumentally less active. I have, therefore, gained a crap load of weight.
I cannot change my lifestyle in a single instant. I cannot wake up one morning and go from being a Pepsi-drinking, mac-and-cheese and junk food eating, and inactive person to a hardcore eating clean/healthy, working out all the time person. I need to take baby steps. So, I stopped drinking soda. Started back up again after 4 months of no soda, got huge headaches, and thought “WTF?” so I stopped again. I started working out 2-3 times a week and eating regular meals, cut out almost (yes ALMOST) all junk food, and lost 10 pounds VERY slowly, over a few months, I would say. Then I completely regressed, and gained those 10 pounds plus some back, even went up a clothing size, which for a woman is HORRIBLE and the most tangible way to know you’re gaining weight. I only want to lose 20 or so pounds, possibly 30. I’m not talking about a HUGE amount of weight. But it is very hard to get active again when you have been inactive for so long.
And eating healthy? SHIT! I thought I was, but since I found this site, I realized I had just exchanged bad food for semi-bad food. Eating “dirty” is easy, you just eat what you want. Eating “clean” or “healthy” is difficult. You have so much information thrown at you, how the Hell are you supposed to know if it’s true or not? You have to do RESEARCH to eat healthy and clean. You have to put forth EFFORT to eat healthy and clean. If all you’re used to is nuking a TV dinner, making a boxed dinner, or ordering take out, this seems HUGE. So, will I be eating pb&j sandwiches for awhile? Yes. Why? Because they are better for me than what’s at work and easy to make. Will I be eating fruit cups instead of fresh fruit? Yes. Why? Because it’s easier for me to do right now and it’s more fruit than I had been eating. Will I still be having butterscotch or chocolate pudding for dessert at lunch? Yes, but I won’t be having ice cream right before I go to bed. SMALL STEPS.
You have to understand that people are not all wired the same way. Some people just don’t give a shit. Some people do, then when they look into it, go “WTF? INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!” and go back to the way they were. And some people start small and work their way up. Very few people can flip lifestyles in an instant. No one I know, who is fat, is happy. They do what they can to help themselves, but it’s never enough. Switching from regular Coke to Diet Coke is not going to help much, but they think it does. Humans love to take the easy way, the path of least resistance. Kelly Osborne said it best on DWTS when she said “Why am I sweating like when I take a shower? The reason I’m fat is because I hate to sweat.”
You just have to accept not everyone is like the people on this site.
/rant[/quote]
This is why I lean toward how OP feels. To be perfectly honest this rant makes absolutely no sense to me. I cannot comprehend why when wanting to be healthy you need ice cream. I cannot comprehend why you’d be angry that there is information out there that you need to read… Every profession every job, every hobby requires knowledge. I cannot comprehend why you needed to do research to learn that take out dinner and tv dinners are bad.
I cannot comprehend why the only fruit you can eat is the stuff covered in syrup when fruit takes so much longer to go bad than vegetables. I cannot comprehend why when you’re unhealthy and know these actions prolong your unhappiness your willing to indulge in them for even a second.
I know these are issues for a vast majority of people and you are not alone. I’m just saying from my paradigm it is like reading another language.
[/quote]
It’s not about needing ice cream, it’s about tradition. Every night, before going to bed, I would have a treat, usually ice cream. On Saturdays, before dance class, while watching my cartoons I would have a HUGE bowl of ice cream for BREAKFAST.
It’s not about being angry about the information, it’s about the abundance of the information and how it contradicts itself. Even the basics differ, depending on what “expert” you talk to. I deal in absolutes, it’s the way I think. Why can’t there be a set of basics, set in stone? Like 1+1=2. That will always be the same. This whole eating healthy and exercise thing? It all depends on who you talk to, and if they’re male or female. I know TV dinners are bad, I didn’t need to research that. What I needed to research was what to eat instead and in what amounts. I mean, which expert do you go with? How do you decide? I am a complete beginner, and if I ask all the trainers on here how to accomplish my goals, I will get 20 different answers. Which one is right? Do you even see where the information is so vast that it becomes information overload and why people just say “fuck it!” and go back to the way they were?
[/quote]
Again I’m just telling you I speak a different language. I can read what your saying and I’ve heard other people say it before, I know people think they are legitimate reasons and they do play a part in the body composition of some people. But to me they make ZERO sense. “I eat ice cream because it’s a tradition.” Plain makes no sense to me. That being said why I eat probably makes no sense to you. I eat the same stuff day in day out to excess, thousands of calories past what makes me full. I do not enjoy what I eat, even if its something I technically like the taste of. But I eat anyway, without pleasure. Food is a fuel. To me its not a tradition, or a pleasure, or a social tool. Its fuel I’m sick of. But I want to gain muscle, so I put up with it because thats life.
As for you saying there’s too much information. I was a skinny clueless 17 year old 135 lbs 6 foot tall kid who didn’t want to be skinny. I’m still trying to learn now, 4 years and 50 lbs later and I’ll still be trying to learn in 50 years. Not understanding isn’t an excuse to stop, its an indicator you need to put in more effort. No I don’t understand why people say fuck it. If you don’t get it try harder, there is a right answer for you. THAT is an absolute.
We’re all crushed and overwhelmed underneath endless information too, were all in the same boat, you’re just joining the game later.
Besides some things are simple and overthinking them is just a waste of effort. If you have a caloric deficit and progress on lifts, run times, scale readings, bf percentage it’s clearly working. There is no such thing as a fat person in a POW camp.
I hope you don’t find this insulting, because unfortunately I can be unkind and unforgiving to overweight people. I’m not trying to be like that right now, I’m just trying to show why I appear that way.