To think "hurrah" when Pauline Quirke admits that when she was huge it was down to general greediness!

[hubbabubbabubba]

Just sick of people not being honest!
i dont believe in people being a size 0 at all, but surely being that large is not good for your health.
She has done brilliantly!

Did she really need to announce it? I thought most fat people were fat due to greediness

To be fair I don't think P Quirke is unusual - most celeb dieters are happy to slag off their 'fat' former selves from the comfort of the acceptably slim girls club.

'Look! I used to be disgusting! Then I tried x and now I look like... ta dah!'

I applaud the honesty and would like to see more of it. Angelina Jolie saying, "I look like a head on a tripod like this at my age because I don't eat enough and it is hard bloody work" would be a good start.

Did you see that program on TV(can't remebr the name) where the fat guy had a lift installed in his house to get upstairs - because he had no option!

Er yes you do - lose weight! I know it's Bloody hard, but it can be done.

(Oh and the guy had a 5 year old - don't know how! He couldn't even see it or reach it...)

Mel B hasn't made me want to join Jenny Craig either-that ad is dreadful.

In theory, yes, it's very simple - eat less, move around more, you'll lose weight.

In practice it's bloody hard. There are many reasons why people over-eat - depression, loneliness, fatigue, 'greed', low self-esteem to name just a few - and I for one believe that until you can get a grasp on which one/s apply to your personal situation it's not going to work long-term.

Right I have

Coffee and walnut - as requested by Sparkling

And good old Chocolate fudge.....Best be quick

Some overweight people are just greedy but a lot have what is essentialy an eating disorder.

I do think Angelina Jolie should be honest too about her skeletal ways! (although she did lose her mother a couple of years ago- I know I went from a size ten to a size 6 very quickly when I was grieving for my close friend when he died )

Me and DH eat exactly the same food (apart from at work). Where I eat a bag of crisps, he eats two. For every bar of choc I have, he has a jumbo size one.

You can guess which of us is thin as a rake

We have different metabolisms, so for me to be thin I have to be really careful about what I eat. Which is boring. So I'm a size 14-16 [shrugs]

Carrot cake for me Sparky!

Thanks Sparky. Nuts are v good for you.

Genetic condition meaning exercise extremely difficult,1200 -1500 calories per day - still obese - it isnt possible to loose and keep it off without exercise. I have to do as much as I can when I can or id be the size of a house :(

I eat less then my size 12 friend - proof is in the cholesterol levels - mine is 3.2 hers is 6.8 I think she said im healthier inside lol

The interesting question is why do people eat too much? That is the nub of the matter. Even the dimmest of dim people on a particularly dim day are aware of what is needed to lose weight - but thanks so much to hubbabubba for enlightening us. Perhaps you should set yourself up Mumsnet's diet and fitness guru hubba and then there will be no more overweight people cluttering the place up.

I think that if (like me) you have a tendency to pack on the inches when you so much as look at cake/biscuits/bread, then you do realise at some point in your life that you may need to avoid those things if you don't want to get bigger (or else you need to do LOADS of exercise on a regular basis). It's boring but regretably true, for me anyway assuming I'm not a total freak who is built differently to everyone else. Pauline Quirke seems to have shared this personal revelation with the world, which is nice from my POV but possibly not from others'.

As I said, I count myself very lucky to be able to lose weight (it takes a lot of work but is possible) as opposed to the millions out there who try desperately and don't succeed, then get called names despite all that effort

I've had weight ishoos in the past but have found a few coping strategies that really help. And whenever my skinny bastard DH starts going on about how 'fat people need to diet' then I punch him. It's cardio :)

The maths is bloody easy.

Forcing yourself to eat less than your body needs, consistently for months is not easy.

I'm a short arse and in order for me to just maintain my so called ideal weight I have to stick to 1400 calories a day-life sentence.

I don't agree that most people are fat due to greediness. I think some are.

If you gain 1lb a year between the ages of 20 and 50 you will become significantly overweight, obese in some cases. Doesn't take much to put on 1lb a year.

Very good point about thin women being more honest about their diet.

It does just as much, if not more, harm for them to say 'ooo I never go to the gym and I am an absolute pig!'

No you arent. You snort coke like a deranged ibizian DJ and you had a pea last Tuesday.

I have never been overwieght. This is caused by a combination of things. I dont have much of an appetite, I am a fidget arse and when i am stressed I stop eating.

None of these things could be said to be healthy.

Of course people get overweight by over eating and under moving but if losing weight were simple we wouldnt have any fat people.

And Pauline Quirke would have lost weight years ago.

I was watching one of those programmes about very obese people this week. I have a disabled husband and we hate the way our lives are restricted by his illness. How he suffers because of it. I will admit that I felt frustrated at the level of disabilty experienced by these people.

But surely if you are in pain, need carers and cant leave the house - if it was a simple matter to lose weight you would just do it?

I dont mean it cant be done or that people have no responsibilty for their weight but it seems to be a complex issue.

I agree with chipmunk - I end up getting really obsessed with calories and that really isn't good for your mental health. Moderation is so much harder to practise than abstinence IMO!

Also the idea that the 'ideal diet' made of low fat products and lost of exercise is actually being very strongly challenged by various helath professionals, incl. cardiologists.
What research is showing is that, on the health point of view, the most dangerous thing is sugar and some saturated fats and the imbalamce between omeag 3 and omega 6. Ie most 'ready meals' and 'industrially prepared foods'.

Now OP, I would challenge you and say being healthy isn't about being thin. It is so much more and actually the definition of being healthy varies from one person to the next. You can also be thin and unhealthy. And I would say also be unthin and be healthy.

If you have a problem with 'fat' people, then I am afraid this is your issue and labelling them with 'big bad words' such as greedy isn't going to change that.

You are more than welcome chipmonk !

Cake?

By the way, poeple don't get big by over eating. They get big by eating the wrong food. For example having diet sodas and diet whatever, which are just as harmful than the full sugar version.
Except that people thing they can do it because 'there is zero calories in it'.

Victoria sponge please

YABVVVU WHEN YOU SAY:
i dont believe in people being a size 0 at all

Size has a relationship with your height. If you are a petite woman being size 0 (Uk size 4) is perfectly acceptable and we need to break that crock of a shit myth as much as we need to break any other potential myth about size/weight. Its very ignorant to say size 0 is just completely wrong.

Clothes size and weight are not the problem. The problem is the relationship between them and your height/build.

You CAN be a very healthy size 0 with a BMI in the normal range. Spouting generalisation about size are very unhelpful.

We need to break myths like Hollywood actresses are getting smaller. (They are not) and the inevitable one about Marilyn being a size 16. (She wasn't).

People need to stop comparing themselves with others and start looking at their own position. We don't all need to eat the same amount, and we shouldn't. You shouldn't criticise someone for eating less than you UNLESS there is clearly a problem (ditto eating more). Doing so makes people very self conscious and defensive about eating.

When you go in a restaurant the meal is designed to fed a large man. If you are much smaller, you do need to seriously question whether its greedy to eat the full portion, and you should feel able to leave some without comment from others. Its seen as rude/wasteful/picky/anorexic not to, which is nuts.

"Skeletal ways"

I smoke, drink wine, don't exercise apart from walking everywhere and have a terrible diet. I'm forty, 5' 4" and a twelve. If I didn't drink or smoke I suspect I would soon become overweight and would have to really look at what I am eating but would be much healthier.