to wonder about obesity

[crashingwaves]

Please, please, PLEASE don't think that this is a fat-bashing thread, I hate it when people do that and I'd never ever do it myself.

The thing is, I love food, I do like nice food and I do overeat on occasions. My BMI is 'overweight' - I could do with shifting a stone - I'm most definitely not a size 8 smuggie person.

What I'm wondering about isn't even people a fair bit bigger than me. But really, really large people (I'm thinking around the 20 stone + region) Isn't it quite, well, difficult in a way to maintain and gain weight at that size, as you really would have to be eating an awful lot (unless a medical reason, I realise things like PCOS can contribute.)

I suppose I was wondering as my friend has a friend who is only 21 and weighs 18 and a half stone - to be honest I think she is in denial a little bit as she says things like "Oh I know I don't look this big" when to be honest she does - I understand that - but given that at that size it is fairly easy to make small changes and still lose weight, I guess I just wonder why people don't. That did sound quite bitchy and judgemental and I'm honestly trying hard to avoid that.

I can totally see how people get big, I've "been there" myself but I guess what I mean was when the scales hit 13 stone I thought "f*ck!" and went on a diet - surely if the scales hit 20 stone you would ...?

I probably deserve a flaming - can I just say mega apologies if I DO offend you as I honestly don't want to do that!

oops worraliberty, not worrability Did you change your name recently or is it just me?

Haha! No, it's just you winny

at bolting down kittens in the dead of night in order to satisfy cravings borne of BF.

I do love the idea of Mamazon changing her name to Glamazon though. Very appropriate.

Every overweight woman knows what the secret to weightloss is - we know that eat less, move more is the answer, we don't need to be told over and over

I would bet that every fat woman's weight crept up over a few years - it really is easy to gain a few pounds a month. Recent changes to clothing sizing's have really not helped - I wore a size 18 at 13st five years ago and now wear 18's at 15st, if I didn't have scales at home, I wouldn't know I had gained well over a stone. The size 18's are actually too big now too.

When you have a stone to lose, it's very doable and not too daunting. When you have over 5st to lose - it's terrifying! Most 'diets' mean losing 1lb a week - 70 weeks plus (the plus is to allow for those weeks that you don't lose anything, even though you have followed the diet to perfection) You go on calorie controlled diet or follow weightwatchers/slimming world and have one night out - you can gain

People that have never gone up into the obese range have no clue how it feels - how enormous a struggle it is to get into a healthy weight range

And for the record, I am clean from shower to shower (daily) and can wipe my own arse fabulously thank you

I have been a size 24 and have recently got into a size 12 for the first time since I was 13 or 14.

I gained loads of weight when pregnant because I ate cpretty much constantly and I mean constantly - I even got up in the night to eat a bowl of cornflakes or toast. The reason why - was not because I was greedy but from 7 weeks to 42 weeks I had a horrible hunger sickness that was there constantly - never fading or easing unless I was eating or had just eaten. I ate pretty healthily (not all cakes and chips) but a heaped bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes at 3am after eating a bowl at 11pm almost every night oviously was not a good thing. I needed to grze constantly throughout the day tol and sometimes it would be quick snacks like toast, inbetween meals. It was the only way the hunger sicknmess/nausea would ease.

My vast weight gain stayed with me for years, my eating habits altered with lots of snacking (although the night time sncking stopped).

I have lost getting on for 6 stone in total following slimmingworld. I am still in the Obese category as I am only 5ft tall so still follow the plan. What I have learnt is that 90% of food on the shelf in the supermarket is full of shit. When I go to the supermarket I go into 3 or aisles and that is it. Fruit and veg, Milk and fat free yogurts, meat and fish, pasta and rice. I no longer buy anything in a packet, tin or jar. Everything I make is from scratch and bloddy hell it is hard on a busy week. I have days where I come home and just want to whack something like a pizza in the oven and just eat in 10 minutes but I dont 99.9% of the time.

Last week for example was a nightmare week with lots going on and a bit of a family crisis. 1 day I ate 3 slices of a plain pizza, the next day I ate a half home made curry using a jar of sauce, another day I had a dry (no butter) hot cross bun and 2 slices of marmite on toast (with butter). Inbetween all this I ate my usual mammoth amounts of slimming world fruit ,salad and veg but just did not have time to prep meals from scratch and was out alot so ate the additional items mentioned above. I gained 2 1/2lbs last week - a normal week I lose 1 to 2 lbs. IMO - i did not pig out or go mad but that difference in my now usual slimmingworld diet had quite an effect of my weight. It is also not PMT week, I can blame nothing else but the food. If I can put on 21/2lbs eating that, then I dont think it would be hard for me to put the 6stone back on to be honest.

Sorry haven;t read all responses but its really not that difficult to be very very large.

I out in 1 stone per year for about 10 years - a pound a month. One pound of fat is about 3,500 cals which works out at around 100 cals a day more than you need and you could out in 10 stone like me. That a large slice of bread a day - no cream eggs necessary.

Of course you need a degree of denial and elasticated waistbands (which should be illegal).

Unfortunately I then developed a life threatening condition which required aggressive steroid treatment and put on another 3 stone in about 6 months and then discovered how people become super-obese and I can tell you its all about exercise at that point. Because you go from a normal activity level with not enough "extra" exercise to struggling to stand up to do the washing up without your back and knees screaming in pain.

Oh and yes - losing weight isn't so very hard when you are doing it for 6 months but when you know you're going to be doing it for the forseeable future and lets e honest probably life because you don't get to be that size without having ISOOS around foodthen its bloody depressing and hard to maintain.

The key is to stop your BMI going over 30 in my opinion - and I say this having clawed my BMI down form 50 to 34 currently and am currently maintaining at this level for a while before I have another go at getting it down below 30.

Fabbychick you are definitely not fabby. Why would you not be able to wipe your ass at size 16. What an idiot!

I kinda want to talk about the OPs question in two parts:

Why people get over-weight?

Why people stay over-weight?

The latter has been talked about a lot: too many calories and too little exercise.

But more and more evidence is building up that their is a very strong genetic component (open source review here saying it's 40-70& of weight variation) to becoming obese.

Doesn't change what needs to be done to lose weight, more's the pity.

It's kind of ironic that the genes that conferred some kind of advantage on those that had them when we were hunter-gatherers now have the opposite effect.

Of course, when Darwin said "survival of the fittest" what he meant by fittest was "most fit for their environment", or "survival of those best adapted/able to adapt"

However, it is hard to adapt to an environment with a permanent surplus of food.

Just don't eat it all.

Don't put it in your mouth.

Stop. Really.

Just because there is a surpluss of food, you don't have to choff it.

Just eat less.

Spiderslegs Maybe you just don't have the gene??

Maybe - Insert.

Would that be the gene that stopped my hand....

I don't belive in the 'gene'.

I drink, I smoke.

Fat people eat.

It's a choice.

Really.

Seriously though, I am not a genetic apologist. Just because you have a genetic tendency towards something, doesn't mean it has to be your fate.

However, people's relationships with food are so much more complex than "just eat less". Food is woven into our culture, as a celebration, a reward, a comfort. Then at the same time we all get told we need to stay slim or we're lazy, ugly and undisciplined.

Also, is obesity REALLY such a big deal? Yes, it'll probably take 20 yrs off your life, but you've got to die of something. Whilst it's not ideal, obese people aren't being made any happier by being berated the whole time. If we just accepted that people are going to get fat, we might all be happier.

But the trouble is that being very overweight doesn't just chop off 20 years of your life. It makes you more likely to get a range of illnesses/diseases throughout your life which in the UK means a significant hit on the health service, plus lower levels of economic activity. Plus for the very very overweight there are all sorts of additional costs like specially reinforced operating tables for example. None of which would matter very much if the levels of obesity were not rising significantly so that instead of being something that afflicts a very small number of people it is getting to be so normal that people's perception of what is a healthy size has changed.

I'm a previously 23 stone person. It took me almost 20 years of very gradual weight gain with a yoyo of about 5 stone every few years, to get to that size.

Initially I was always a chubbier teen, size 14 ish, but short, so not a healthy size 14. When I left home at 19, earning a relatively huge IT salary, life revolved around sitting down all day, drinking all evening and weekend and takeaway food. I then had a pregnancy and abusive relationship, left and comfort ate myself to about a size 24/26.

For the past 10 years or so, I've gone up and down between a size 22-30, been pregnant twice more and lost weight during pregnancy but put more on after due to pnd (was still very much a comfort eater), but for the past 5 years, things have been very different.

I went from about 19-23 stone without gaining more than 1-2 clothes sizes, so yes it really crept up on me. I tried lots of diets and exercise regimes, but nothing seemed to work...id lose 8lb in 4 months rather than in a week as I used to in years gone by. My eating habits changed as I no longer snacked and stopped drinking alcohol, but my portions were HUGE and I had a very sweet tooth.

I watch supersize/superskinny, sometimes with (superfit, Mr 6 Pack!) DH and we're incredulous at what the bigger people put away, as I've not eaten like that ever, even when I comfort ate...I like nice food :o. I was told once years ago that it takes a lot of calories/fat etc to get to my size but not as much to maintain it and this certainly rings true. None of my children or DH are an ounce overweight and we always eat the same....like I said, my portions were epic tho...

However, I had a gastric bypass last autumn and am now around 14stone and a size 16/18 :) and normally fitter and healthier than ever, doing exercise 5 times a week and as my problem was portion size, its been easy for me as this literally stops me being able to eat as much. I wish I'd done it years ago as now I can see the damage being so overweight was doing to me and my life - I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 12 months ago and that's completely gone for example.

In my research for the bypass which took me two years, I found lots of evidence that with BMI over 50, generally the body will not be able to lose the excess weight thru diet and exercise alone, obv with some exceptions, and this is some of the basis for the NICE guidelines for NHS weight loss surgery.

Not sure if this makes it any clearer for anyone, its just my story :) Off to read the whole thread now!

Coming back to say mamaz0n OMG you are stunning!!

Yes, Mamazon , wow! Not surprised you get all the attention from men. :)

I have a problem with eating. I gained a lot of weight and now am a bit over 13 stone. I just started doing Paul McKenna and I love it. :)

It's not always as easy as "eat less, move around more."

I am very lucky because I eat what I want and am very slim (but I am also very active so I guess that helps). I love sweets and cakes and all things sugary. No doubt one day it will all catch up with me and I will pile on the pounds. WIll I be able to stop stuffing my gob with chocolate? No - probably not. I enjoy it. That's how people get fat, because food is NICE and everywhere. I could easily see myself going down that route.

Lolol at the kitten

Someone was asking why people put on weight in pregnancy. I had severe morning sickness with dd and was working. Had a 45 minute tube commute every morning. I discovered that eating a huge bowl of cereal before bed every night and a huge breakfast when I got to work stopped me feeling so bad. Sadly it also meant I put on about 15kg extra weight which took me years to lose!

I also find as you get older (and I'm talking 40s), it does get harder to shift the weight.

LyingWitch That has to be quote of the week!!

I have read the whole thread and whilst i understand the OP's question i cannot understand some posters attitude towards it being supposedly easy to lose weight or stay slim.

I have been between 3 and 7 stone overweight for the last 20 years, sometimes i have managed to get to within 2 stone of a healthy weight range for my height but mostly i have been about 5 stone overweight. Its very very easy to put on but often requires lots of willpower (something which not everybody has) and quite often especially in the beginning being hungry as reducing calories often means eating less than you are used to.

When i hit 30 i was so utterly fed up with torturing myself i thought 'fuck it' Ill accept myself as i am because its a hell of alot easier than metally beating myself up every day. My ex H used to be really nasty about my weight (i mean really nasty) and reading fabbychics and duece's posts reminds me of his attitude, if it really were that easy to lose weight surely all of us would have done it by now.

I, like mamazon also got plenty of male attention, it seems that the minute you accept yourself and project a confidence in the way you look that people also automatically find you more attractive. I still get the ' oh youv'e such a pretty face imagine how you'd look if you were slim' occasionally but in the main because i dont seem to give a shit and i sure as hell dont complain about being overweight it seems no one else thinks that they can either.

I have lost 1.5 stone in the last year taking me back down to 16 stone - i am going to spend this year getting some more off because i have to. The choice isnt there for me anymore. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when i was pg with DS two years ago (i had had gestational diabetes with all my other pgs but it went away again) i should not be surprised at this as my parents both had it although at a much later age and werent particularly large. I know i have exaccerbated my condition by being overweight/obese although i asked my consultant and he said it probably came earlier because of my weight but that it was more than likely genetics. I know people who are 25 stone plus and who have sailed through pregnancies - they also dont have any signs of high blood pressure or diabetes, its just the genetic luck of the draw i guess.

I will miss my curves/rolls/being fat (call it what you will) it doesnt hold the same revulsion for me that it does for other people i am always clean, well presented and have a gorgeous plus sized wardrobe - no need for me to feel pissed off about my size at all - and i sure as hell can wipe my own arse at a size 24! so im looking forward to being able to do it with aplomb at a 16 . I am certain that my DH will miss my size too but we both agree that in the long term i have 4 lovely DC's and him to stay alive for and in the end thats what it comes down to - health, nothing to do with the way i look as i am fine with that.

Oh yes and Mamazon you rock! keep up the good work - its great to see women who are plus sized with your confidence.

I have been big since I was very yong (I dont remember much abotu my weight as a child but I DO remember when i started a new secondary school when i was 12 and had to register with the school nurse I was 11.5 stone which put me quite seriously in the overweight catergory). Since then I have just stayed pretty much the same weight gone up a bit when ive been pregnant but still stayed between 11 and 12 stone. I am 5 foot 3 so this puts my int he overweight/obese category. The hardest part is changing habits which formed through my childhood which may suonds simple (i.e dont eat as much food!) but its actually hard if you have NEVER had a healthy relationship with food. My mother died at 42 from a heart attack, severely overweight (more so than me at the moment) so I know what will happen if I let it get much worse and I keep where I am now rather than gaining but goign lower has beaten me for 10 years plus.