AIBU to rethink a friendship after comments about weight being a choice?

[MyCherryPiee]

I met with a friend last night and she has said something which is can’t stop thinking about and is making me quite mad.

She said being fat is a choice most of the time. She agreed that in certain cases like PCOS and medical conditions it isn’t a choice but in most cases it is a choice.

Friend is very health conscious, fit and active. She is usually quite upfront with her words but not hateful with it. I’ve never witnessed her say anything like this before. I am just appalled at this thinking from a full grown woman.

AIBU to think the comment is more complicated than she says and also in thinking I don’t want to be friends anymore?

what a weird way to look at it? Why on earth do you think it's normal or nothing to put on a stone or 2?

That's likely how the problems start with most people, oh it's only 2 stones, no drama. Just why?

God save us from people who are offended on others behalf.

op I’m not even overweight but I’m offended for all fat peope.
fat people, we are fine and agree with her,
op well I’m still offended for you.

ffs 😂

every single one of us who is fat or was fat, made a series of bad choices to get there, unless a medical reason. We all could have stopped at any point, be it the 2 lbs mark or the 2 stone mark. We did not.

yes once you’ve done it, it is nearly impossible to get the weight off and keep it off. We all know this, but does that mean it wasn’t a choice we made to get there,no it doesn’t. It was a series of bad choices over a prolonged period.

Are you overweight OP? If so . She’s not a friend

You’re right, it’s an extra 500 calories a day. Which could be a bigger portion of peanut butter, too much butter on your toast, slightly more pasta, more oil in the pan. 500 calories can add up fast if you’re not looking. That would be 2000 calories for me as someone who works out 5 x a week a 2000 calories is not a lot when you’re an active person. I currently eat 1500 to maintain my weight and I’m always hungry.

It’s not eating like shit and is easily done if you’re not tracking everything to the calorie. I’ve tracked calories for years but eyeballing portions is still hard for me and when I stop and start again I’m always surprised.

I’m not overweight so I’m not arguing for myself. I’m just saying the cost of overeating is not comparable to the cost of WLI. Most people aren’t spending an extra couple of hundred a month on food.

OP your posts are confusing. On the one hand you don’t believe being fat is a choice but on the other you describe working hard to look extremely average. You are making a choice every day to “watch your weight”.

if you didn’t do that you recognise you’d be more than a stone overweight. Surely that’s the choice your friend is referencing?

Didn’t say it was normal but it’s very common in people as they get older.

That’s a fantastic achievement. But your really struggle will now be keeping it off for life. Every day eating only at maintenance. I know from experience this is where it gets harder.

then You’re validating it’s a choice, because we all were 1 or 2 stone over weight at one point and we all chose not to deal with it, and to continue to gain.

as said, ince it gets to obesity, your metabolic processes are generally fucked, and it becomes incredibly difficult to lose, if not impossible for most people, it is months or years of deprivation, and daily extreme cravings, but that doesn’t mean getting to that position wasn’t a choice, even if we didn’t recognise we were making it,

Sorry, but it’s not easily done.

500 calories one day, maybe. But to even gain a stone that’s an extra 49,000 calories. A coating of butter on a slice of bread (around 8g) is around 89 to 100 calories - so you’d need to be eating an extra 40g of butter a day to gain a pound in a week.

To gain a stone you must eat an extra 49,000 calories. Do you even comprehend how much food that is? That’s 6.8kg of butter, to use your example.

It’s not easily done unless you’re making active choices - to not track what you eat, to not be sensible about what you eat, and to not keep an eye on what you’re actually consuming.

Yes and the heavier you get the more cals you need to maintain it, so to keep gaining you need to keep increasing the over consumption,

The medication isn’t for people who are a bit overweight though.

As you get older, you have to eat less, to stay the same. Everyone knows about ‘ middle aged spread’ and in fact most people are bigger age 45 than they were age 25. Perhaps it’s not very embedded in our culture that ‘ watching your weight’ is essential to good health, in the long term. I think other cultures are aware of this, like the Japanese, French, Chinese.

Yep. A lot of people are in denial about the amounts they eat.

I’m not sure I understand this. She’s not wrong! Why so offended? Yes, the odd medical condition can cause excessive weight, but very few people are born obese.

Exactly. My deficit when I started losing weight was 2700 calories. That’s more than most people can fathom.

We take our cats to a nearby vet. One of our cats is overweight. The vet talks about eating windows, and how this might reduce the weight. He really gets into the topic. However, I sometimes have a rather sneaking suspicion about whether he is directing this advice towards the care of the cat, or to eating habits I should introduce for myself. He’s writing a book on the subject, ostensibly for dogs.

I think they make you feel fuller, plus make you excrete lots of fat.

This is how a friend taking them described them to me.

This is simply not true. Twenty five years ago I was seriously overweight. I reached a tipping point and decided something had to be done. I chose to calorie count and increase my exercise and I’ve chosen to maintain that lifestyle ever since. I imagine many of my friends think I’m naturally slim but I’m not - it’s a choice I make every day.

I agree to a certain extent but again people are ignoring the role that the two hormones play in an individual’s genetic makeup. I mentioned ghrelin and leptin earlier in this thread and not one person has acknowledged that they play a part in the obesity epidemic. Science has proven this to be true without a doubt.

What now? Eh no they don’t make you excrete fat, good grief,

I was overweight (not obese) as a child and early teenager, and I lost the weight through diet and exercise. I agree with your friend.

I still love cake, pizza and chips. I'd happily eat a chocolate croissant for breakfast instead of porridge, biscuits instead of an apple at work, and wine and crisps every evening in front of the TV. I don't avoid those things because I don't want them, I avoid them because I choose not to have them every day. And it's bloody hard.

Some people have a tougher time because of metabolism, medication or other factors, but for the vast majority of us, staying a healthy weight comes down to making those difficult choices day after day.

They work by increasing the hunger and saitiety hormones amongst other things, which levels the playing field for obese people who are then on a par with ‘normal’ people, which is why they then find it ‘easier’ eat smaller portions and to avoid unhealthy foods. It doesn’t dissolve fat or melt it away.

It kind of is, prescription guidelines are for bmi 27 if you’ve other health conditions, like high cholesterol or blood pressure. And you can take them to maintain down to a bmi of 22, sometimes 19

She is right though.

I think you are right in as much as they have lowered the threshold to be more proactive and stop obseity happening in the first place. However they were never designed for people who just wanted to loose a stone before their holiday for example