This right here. I’ve found that if your ambitions exceed scheduling the next guys’ poker night than people have a tough time relating with you. My wife and I have a group of friends that got married young and had kids immediately. I’m sure they are happy, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with these choices, but when they publically display resentment towards their wife and kids, I have to believe they partially made their decisions based on what they thought they should be doing. Despite countless attempts by myself to encourage them to pursue what they say they wish they had, they always fumble back to their old lifestyle. I even went as far as to pay for someone’s gym membership, because he said he was tired of being overweight (he’s skinny/fat) and couldn’t afford it. After two workout sessions he stopped showing up and returning my calls. I ran into him while on a walk, a year later. He pretended like nothing happened and said we should get drinks sometime; we still haven’t.
Also, we’ve been accused of having an unbalanced and unhealthy life too. Because of the amount of things my wife and I fit in our schedule, people assume we never see each other. Really, we just don’t sit in front of the tv for six hours a night and accomplish things.
Many people have absolutely no formal nutrition education. And it seems many become intellectually dysfunctional when it comes to understanding nutrition and weight. Like I’ve said elsewhere, many times when discussing my prep with people (because they inquired), I’d have and still have people saying, “So you don’t eat?” and “So it’s all protein, right?” I’m usually very tolerant with whatever anyone says, but I must say, the only statement which has me very annoyed (for real), is the line, “So you don’t eat.” I actually can’t hold back my sarcasm and annoyance when I heard or heard this line.
Just this Friday, I replied to someone, “Yes, I went for five months without eating and I am still alive.”
There are also far too many nutritional myths out there and legions f people who are considered by others and consider themselves nutritionists and “nutrition experts” and spread all sorts of pseudoscience and crappy recommendations.
You’re right in the sense that someone right-brained would likely have the mindset to plow through all this nonsense and actually find out the appropriate things to do.
@dchris - [quote] Also, we’ve been accused of having an unbalanced and unhealthy life too. Because of the amount of things my wife and I fit in our schedule, people assume we never see each other. Really, we just don’t sit in front of the tv for six hours a night and accomplish things.[/quote]
That stuff is so highly individual. I waited till my mid 30’s to get married, and 40 to have a kid. I was always in awe of my friends who settled down when I just couldn’t imagine it. Meanwhile, they were envying that I was still on the loose. Then I settled down and now a bunch of them have split up!
You thought you were helping a friend with his health, giving him a super cool new hobby, and hopefully gaining a training partner. The truth is, you probably just took away an excuse he had for not going to the gym because it feels like a chore to him. He may not have realized it either until the excuse was gone.
As soon as you see the words, “… not to sound like a dick,” you can be pretty sure that whatever follows isn’t going to be anything good.
This is actually the time in which I feel guilty about going on a back-lashing tirade even though I thought what he said was distasteful. That guilty conscience…
I’m just popping back in to this thread to say that I’ve seen value and good intentions in just about every post. Misunderstanding each other is a normal phenomenon. Working to understand something that doesn’t seem normal to you is, in my opinion, a place where people fail just as often as we fail to make healthy choices with fitness, with diet and with our mental well-being. Casting judgement always comes easy. Understanding each other takes work.
Sincerely,
A fat dude who is beyond excited to do some SSB squats tomorrow.
Guilt is only good if it’s a catalyst for positive change. It’s a fairly natural response to want to defend your spouse. Understandable, but maybe next time you’ll choose to ignore it.
You were teasing me about trying to be Wonder Woman. Actually, most of my introspection is about this kind of thing. Am I doing a good job at being “the kind of friend a friend would like to have?” The kind of daughter my parents deserve? A quality sister to my brothers? This is more what I meant about how we all fail differently. My fails are less visible than someone who’s having trouble with morbid obesity, but I’m not sure they are less important fails in the eternal scheme of things. A friend of mine had her daughter in the ICU for a month this fall and I got over there to see them twice, although I never missed my daily workout. Those goals that are less focused on myself, and are more focused on the others in my life trip me up a lot. Feeling guilty about it isn’t helpful unless it leads me to sincere change. We like to feel like we’re making progress on these things, and it’s always a little humbling to fall down.
Perhaps I just never think of the idea of being a perpetual do-gooder. And although I am working on having kids–until something connects that is–and have no experience with being a parent so far, I plan on being the best father I can be, but I am also not fond of the idea of being an overbearing or so-called helicopter parent. And being a good friend is fairly easy for good natured people such as myself. So I don’t see myself failing in that.
You did mention the failing of people falling short on having an ideal body. Now for that I can’t feel much considering having a perfect body is a luxury. I was speaking for people who don’t care enough to simply be in good healthy. Yes, some people have an addiction, and for that I have empathy. It’s just that I feel the vast majority of overweight people don’t care, or don’t care enough about their plight considering they manage to take of other things all the time.
(the following is all said with the utmost self deprecating humor)
This made me laugh because I am Horrible with this.
Its easily enough for a whole other topic, but I never saw it coming. Not until he coughed and gasped for that first breath. Then just about everything I thought I would be as a father went straight out the window.
I’ve dialed it back a good bit but holey moley was I a fruitcake when he was smaller.
I don’t want to belabor this but can we really consider people maintaining normal body weights to be idealistic? We don’t have a tiny minority of Americans carrying a bit of chub. We have an obesity epidemic. As I’ve said before, I have about 400 co-workers, nearly all of whom are obese. Everywhere I go, there are legion of obese people. Are we really being hard on people?
Like I really don’t want to, but being a healthcare professional, a registered dietitian, I have a sensitivity to the topic.
Do people really have to avoid using good judgement because they’re not perfect. I’ll judge people and will be judged myself till the end.
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not that I approve of obesity in others or don’t feel that I am allowed to judge due to my own shortcomings, it’s that while I take care of my own body there are other things I could improve, and to me those things have much greater far-reaching importance than body weight. Other people’s eating and exercise choices, although I recognize the national cost of obesity and support controls on junk food sold in schools and such, seem unimportant to me. People are weak, generally speaking.
I like to exercise and I tend to prefer to eat very well - these are from my perspective unearned blessings. I am less capable when it comes to other things that are good for me, and often fall short. I know that when I have to buckle down and lose 5 pounds (generally as far as I’ll allow myself to go before taking action) I feel that I am suffering mightily, and frankly don’t know how anyone faces a 50+ lb weight loss effort. So bearing in mind that I consistently fail to slow down when driving despite telling myself that I should and I will, bearing in mind that I let people down occasionally though I try not to, bearing in mind that I can be impatient and sharp at times - I recognize that being perfect is hard, and have sympathy for people who find ideal bodies difficult to achieve.
I think it’s worth mentioning that the obesity problem is by-and-large limited to so-called First World nations, and is of epidemic proportions in only a few of those. (USA! USA!) Further worth mentioning is the fact that, at least in the US, there exist complex interactions among race and wealth vis a vis predictors of obesity. (The lowest obesity rates in the US are found among the richest white women and the poorest black men.)
I bring all this up because these facts need to be accounted for when one ponders the why of obesity.
I suppose I view weight training (insert physical activity) differently. I see it as a requirement to living.
Keeping up with family vs. volunteering. Would be activities that are trade offs, which I’m not perfect at.
Note that exercising for health and training for BB, powerlifting, athletics are viewed differently. But for health reasons, one should make this a priority of living.
I know such facts, though I did not know the fact about poor black men. However I see such black men everyday considering the town I work in, as well as the overwhelming number of obese black women who might be poor considering the area. However, nearly all of my co-workers are obese black women, and they’re likely not poor considering their professions.
Do you care to tell us why rich white men are the leanest? I have a hunch but am hesitant to say.
We always worry, and wonder if we’re doing it right. I hope things work out with starting your little family.
Gobsmacked, as it should be! He’s adorable. I’m pretty sure you’d need some kind of super powers to not be pulled in by those big brown eyes. I envy you guys who are just starting your families, or who still have really little kids. I’d do it all over again if I could.