To think you can be fat and fit.

[Footloose80]

Now I know I am obese but I am working on it. I do loads of exercise including going to the gym with my 15 year old dd who is maybe a stone over the top end of her ideal weight. Portion sizes are the main issue for her. She plays a sport and is pretty active.
This weekend dd2 had a birthday party at a trampoline park. Dd1 participated and had a blast until she overheard someone saying "How can she do that? She is fat?"
This got me thinking as I also do Ultra Challenges. I am not fit enough to do the full ones yet but some those that do are various sizes.
So aibu to think you can be fat and fit.

Well, I'm fat and I ran my first half marathon last year - 3hours 2min. Considering that my very fit friend ran it in half the time, and I'm 4-5 stone overweight, I don't think that's that bad. I can also jog up steps faster than my skinny co-worker, har har.Still, I love exercising and fitness, and do feel my weight holds me back. sigh I've got to learn to stop eating such big portions! Always my trouble...

yes you can
and i know many who are slim and unfit

Exercising is good whether or not we’re the “right” weight. I find it much more fun to exercise than to manage my food intake! But weight loss is primarily diet, sadly.

"But weight loss is primarily diet, sadly."

I couldn't disagree more.

Why do you say so?

Saw it on Pinterest

My personal experience has been that a 45 min jog will burn around 450cals and an aerobics class 300-350. V easy (for me, but I do have a binge eating problem!) to eat a lot more extra calories than that.

I have exercised lots for several years, and feel good on and enjoy it, but haven’t lost weight.

That yoga lady looks really unfit - she is just bendy, which isn’t much to do with fitness (you can be very flexible naturally without actually being fit e.g having cardiovascular fitness) Being able to run 5k doesn’t make you fit either - if it’s taking you 40 minutes or so then I’d say that you are pretty UNfit (unless you are over 75) - it’s only 3 miles. Being able to do the odd fitness class doesn’t make you fit. It’s generally far better to be within your healthy range of weight - I don’t know why people can’t see this?

It's been proved that being overweight is a negative in itself in terms of health. So even if other factors like blood pressure are ok, being fat in itself is a bad thing. But fit is subjective too.

"That yoga lady looks really unfit - she is just bendy, "

I had a landing and stair carpet laid last week. Th big roll was pretty bendy too.

Being overweight is negative to men’s health. Remember all this research has almost exclusively be done on men. The truth is that being overweight or even in the early stages of obese (bmi 26-30) can offer women of child bearing age protection from certain conditions in later life.

@Cherries101

The reason for the skewed subject class (and this is an area I genuinely know about) is because it is seen as sexism / misogyny to question whether fat women are unhealthy. Men are more open to testing.

I am not making any excuses for the fatty on the trampoline who happens to be my beautiful dd1. She knows she is larger than her friends but she plays sport regularly and gives the boys a run for their money in PE.
I suspect she has slightly more muscle than some of her cohort but I would of course prefer her to weigh less.
I am not saying that well I can walk 25K in one go and cover hundreds of miles a month along with gym, classes etc.so I can eat what the hell I want. I know I need to be careful and l to set a good example for the girls.
It is a difficult subject as a sibling had eating disorders when I was a teenager. I was a normal weight at the time.

I'm quite limited in what I can do now so I keep as fit as I can within limitations
No running/jogging and no impact stuff (step, aerobics, jump squats etc)

OK, google latest pictures of Serena Williams. Not really a stick insect is she. And I'd doubt that there are many people fitter than her.

'Fit' is one's capacity for movement, is it not? So yes, you could be fat and fit, but your organs will be in a comparatively suboptimal condition.

I can also jog up steps faster than my skinny co-worker, har har

I think this is part of the problem - skinny being seen as automatically fit and overweight people being seen as the ultimate in unfitness. When I weighed 7 stone I smoked 30 a day and drank a bottle of wine a day and couldn’t even run for a bus.

There are lots of things which cause unfitness and being overweight is just one of them.

Yes, being overweight is not the optimum for fitness, but no, it doesn’t automatically mean you are unfitter than all people with normal BMIs. If they smoke, never do any physical activity, have a poor diet lacking calories or drink too much, skinny people can be much less fit that a fatter person.

Fit fat might not exist, but that doesn’t always mean overweight people are bottom of the fitness pile.

Being able to run faster than someone else isn’t fitness, recovering faster is fitness. A fat person might run up stairs faster but their heart rate won’t go back down at the same rate as a normal weight person with the same level of fitness.

Of course being fit and being healthy isn’t always the same thing either.