(Question) Why do Overweight Individuals Stay Overweight.....?

It's really not hard to lose weight. It's just a matter of using a little bit of math, tracking your daily calories and aiming for 500-1,000 calories deficit a day.



http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Go to that link. Put in your stats and it'll tell you what calories you need to consume a day to maintain your present weight.

Subtract 500 from your maintenance calories and you're going to drop about 1 lb. a week.

Follow that formula for a year and you're looking at 36 lbs. lost without even needing to change your diet other than eat just a little bit less.

Fact is you don't even need to have a good diet in order to lose weight. Lets say your maintenance calories are 3,000 a day. 2,500 calories of beer is the same as 2,500 calories of a healthy mix of protein, carbs and fats. Your body will appreciate the latter because its healthier but at the end of the week your body will still only have lost one pound.

 

Not to be rude but I don't think it's short sighted to say those that are overweight are lazy or undisciplined. You basically went on a rant that said you'd rather watch Rockets games and how hard it is to work out after working 8-10 hours per day and how it eats up all your "free time". Your mentality is already wrong. Combine that with a desk job where your sitting around in front of a computer all day and you have a recipe for disaster.

You get back what you put in. You have to make sacrifices if you really want to see change... even if it does mean missing a Rockets game or two. Even if it means you can't post or surf the BBS all day or watch tv or play video games. Pack your gym bag in the morning and go straight to the gym as if it were your job after work instead of coming home and doing your normal routine or you can wake up earlier and go to the gym before work.

You don't have to workout 2+ hours a day. You said 1 hour didn't do anything for you at all. That's only believable if you didn't push yourself 100%. If you pushed yourself as hard as you could for even 20 minutes I bet you'd feel like passing out.

Growing up I was always the "fat kid". It took a lot of sacrificing and changes in lifestyle but it paid off. I'm 6ft tall and went from being 205 with about 20% body fat at my heaviest down to a current weight of 180 and 8% body fat.

If you really want to lose weight and don't want to be the biggest guy in the room you can make it happen. You just have to really want it.

 

P90X

Just seems that you would benefit greatly from a program like this, and cut down your workout times big time. I don't know if you've tried it, but you should definitely look into it instead of those 2+ hrs at the gym. It will work if you stick with it.

 

Lets not forget there are a lot of people who are technically overweight or even obese according to BMI but are still very healthy. We have a lot of people in Judo who are like that.

Anyway there is no one answer. Certainly some are who are lazy there are others who have other issues making it harder to lose weight. Another issue that contributes a lot to weight gain is stress. Its easy to say to just make sacrifices but when you stretched due to job and family concerns the stress can contribute to the weight gain while those other things take away time to exercise.

Also to the OP I presume you are relatively young but I can tell you it gets much harder as you get older.

 

Slimmer people are generally more physically attractive and people generally want to be more good looking and accepted by people. Then athletic feats of physicality, those are things we can SEE. Those things aren't highly "rewarding" to every person though.

So then how do you properly relate a "wellness benefit" to another person? Especially nowadays when people have been eating like crap their whole life, they have no reference point to where they've ever felt GOOD to where they can recognize that they now feel BAD. How do you show someone who's satisfied in their overweight life that they can be even better by slimming down their portions, to where they feel the wellness benefit is A NEED?

Cuz of that, sad to say, it generally takes a personal health crisis for people to change their bad habits. Habits that start from very young cuz of the microwave culture we are in.

Yes other countries have the same social elements and fare a lot better, and ultimately the responsibility is on the individual to take care of themselves. But chubby people can make a compelling argument at least to themselves that they don't need to change cuz we're all going to die of SOMETHING anyway so whats the point.

People do take their decent health in spite of bad eating for GRANTED. People don't think about old age and retirement, but the benefit to healthy living can be the difference in having most of your current functioning senses like SIGHT still working, and being blind and legless in a wheelchair while everyone else your age walks around pain-free.

 

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/li...christmas-dinner/story-e6frf019-1225976731223

Donna Simpson ate 30,000 calorie Christmas dinner


A WOMAN who hopes to become the fattest woman in the world is now 30,000 calories closer to her 453.5kg (1000lb) goal with a festive feast that could have fed dozens of people.

 

For those of you that work in an office/corporate environment --

Is it just my office, or is every admin person / assistant at your office also grossly overweight?

 

dont even pretend to want to get to 'understand' whats wrong with fat ppl. this is just a show to congratulate yourself on how awesome u think u r. i say this cos i know. i started becoming fit n healthy when i was in college, and like some ppl here, it got to my head. i started feeling disgusted why everybody else cant put in the work i do. later on i realize nobody else gives a **** about looking like myself as much as i do. u want to feel like youre the best version of what ppl can be, go ahead. go bang 2 prostitutes (strawberry blond, dirty blond) infront of a mirror with the camera on. but keep that backpatting to urself. stop yourself from having to beat other ppl's self esteem and lowering their self image.

if ppl r coming to u for advice, fine, give them advice, be cool, be supportive. most ppl are fine with how they look without ppl or media telling them they shouldnt. they exercise without having a certain body image in mind. when youre battling multiple injuries to stay healthy, theres something wrong there. stop doing whats become easy for u, start improving other areas of urself. like maybe a better personality? one thats not so full of urself?

btw DD deserves alot of beating down, but not bcos hes fat. if he can live with himself happily, good for him. why u gotta concern urself with other ppls waistline

 

n good for u yoyo for not missing out on a rockets game. some of you guys need to quit clutchfans n join those gym circle jerkoff forums

 

SUDDEN DEATH AND EXERCISE
Timothy D. Noakes, Physiology, University of Cape Town Medical School Observatory 7925, South Africa

Lack of habitual physical activity is now considered to be the fourth major risk factor for coronary heart disease. Yet it is clear that, on occasion, trained and apparently healthy athletes die suddenly during exercise.

A graphic example of this tragedy is that of a 57 year-old American who collapsed and died within one minute after setting a regional master's record for the 3000-m run indoors. The athlete had not previously reported cardiac symptoms and a maximal exercise test performed 22 months before his death did not reveal any cardiac abnormalities.

How is it possible to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable: that habitual physical activity may protect from heart disease, yet exercise per se may be an important risk factor for sudden death? It is a problem with which medicine has grappled since antiquity.

http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/suddendeath/suddendeath.html

I'm hungry...

 

No thats what I said I used to do but now I either do get up early or go straight from work but at often times means I am either up at 6 am and then going to bed past 1 because of my other responsibilities outside of work...As much as I would like not to admit it I've honestly only seen 8 rockets games this season - full or partial, 1 of which I've attended...my league pass this season is really going to waste...so yeah I did go straight home from work yesterday to watch one of the biggest games of the season. by the time i get home from the gym the games already over and i am not the type to watch a game on a dvr not when the score i already know i'll watch highlights and thats it

as i already said i've barely even seen the rockets play this year so missing a rockets game this season is more the norm than the exception...i mainly follow them through the board and the highlight torrents and clutch's recaps. watching tv/video games and i rarely get time for as it is...i pretty much cut out anything remotely that is "wasting time" and even stop hanging out with a few friends just because i didnt have the time (and even got the dreaded facebook de-friending) so you assuming that I watch tv/play video games instead of working out again...assumption

I would spend at least an hour on the eliptical going for 1000 calories per hour -- not sure how that isnt pushing myself. when I consulted my physician about it he recommended me not to do the treadmill right away as I would put a lot of stress on my joints and told me to use the eliptical instead. As I said in my first post I went 3 months changing my diet and spending an hour every weekday at the gym, both my roommate and I did this and at the end of 3 months he had lost 15 pounds and I had gained 2. He has the same type of desk job and if anything was even more lethargic around the apt on weekends.

i just got home from work and the gym right now the last thing i did before leaving work was the last post i made...now I have other responsibilities to handle before even thinking about going to bed that I cant avoid (not going into detail but I basically have a second job for my temple where I am in charge of all of the middle/so cal region and hawaii) right now sleeping 3-4 hours a day keeping this routine up is starting to take its toll on me thats all. I didnt say I was going to quit but it is taking a toll on me, I made a promise to a person that I would lose 50 pounds by May of 2011 right now I am easily on pace for that I was hoping to do at least 75 as a surprise. i am hoping that at least once its down that it will be a lot easier to keep down instead of having it balloon up again.



as for p90x my roommate and I did try that but there are some of the exercises on there that I physically just can do yet because of my frame but the ones I could do we did 1-2 times a week instead of going to the gym since we got a pretty good workout from that too.

 

Quote:
Donna Simpson, who weights 292kg, sat in a reinforced metal chair, chowed down on the world's biggest Christmas dinner as she ate for two straight hours.

The single mother-of-two, from New Jersey in the US, tucked into two 11kg (25lb) turkeys, two maple-glazed hams, 6.8kg (15lbs) of potatoes - 4.5kg (10lbs) roast, 2.3kg (5lbs) mashed, five loaves of bread, 2.3kg of herb stuffing, three litres of gravy, three litres of cranberry dressing and an astonishing 9kg (20lbs) of vegetables.

After polishing off her enormous main course, she still had room for dessert and ate a "salad" made of marshmallow, cream cheese, whipped cream and cookies.

Simpson's two children, Devin, 14, and Jacqueline, three, enjoyed a more modest feast.

The 157.5cm tall Simpson defended her meal, saying: "I eat as much as I want, whenever I want but at this time of year I really go all out.

"Christmas should give you carte blanche to do whatever you want."

Simpson, who insists she is healthy, told the Sunday Mirror newspaper in the UK: "People who feel guilty about eating are hilarious.'

She makes a living from being fat, getting paid to make public appearances and keeping a website where people can pay to watch her eat.

Already a Guinness world record holder for being the largest woman to ever give birth, Simpson hopes to gain 160kg (25 stone) more and officially become the fattest woman in the world.

She got the Guinness World Record as the world's fattest mother, when she gave birth in 2007 weighing 241kg (38 stone).

She needed a team of 30 medics to deliver her daughter Jacqueline during a high-risk Caesarean birth.

Simpson met Jacqueline's father Philippe on a dating site for plus-size people, even though he weighed only 63.5 kg (10 stone). He supported her 12,000-calorie a day diet and was a "belly man" who loved her enormous shape.

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Really? Genetic? Really?
It's maybe the culture.. no other countries in the world have fat people like here in the state. How do you explain that? You only have yourself to blame.

 

This would be an awesome post... if it were written in legible english.oh what the hell, rep anyway.

 

I repped him too. I love a good card-pulling.

 

because to maintain a healthy body requires you to eat a celery fart and drink water.

 

I think, as some ppl already stated, some ppl do choose to be like that. It is curious. Like, it is it kind of hard to understand why the OP comes off like a douche when he could have been much more polite about it. I don't think he was talking about ppl like YoYo who sound like they have bad genetics and no time. There are ppl who genetically could be healthy (not Jim six pack per se) and have time but are comfortable being fat. And with my friends, I've noticed that the overweight ones tend to not have jobs/kids, so the post that implied fit ppl don't have jobs or kids or whatever is just as ignorant as the OP. Also I know older guys that would put me to shame, so don't blame it on age either. Everyone has their priorities and lifestyle they are comfortable with. Ppl do drugs and crap that 100% mess up their bodies, so clearly it is not just a fat person problem. I agree, if you are fit, try improving something else. I love trying to learn new things. Yeah, I'm not going to be virtuoso or a world class athlete, but I enjoy learning Muy Thai and learning the guitar. OP, stop worrying about other people and concentrate on yourself. Sometimes its good to be a thoughtful selfish than an arrogant selfless.

 

It's not "easy" to lose weight if you're overweight. It's just easier for your body to give up that weight than the last 5 pounds, but it still takes work.

I think the reasons vary. Some people went through an event that enabled them to let it get out of hand. Pregnancy, depression, busy work schedule, etc. Once the pounds pile on it feels like it's impossible to ever work out enough to burn that off, especially having to work and do other dialy things. I wouldn't call these people lazy because they still get up every morning, get their kids up, take them to school, work, come home, make dinner, etc...

Other are simply lazy. They never want to do anything physical and not doing anything leads to overating. They'll always stay overweight if they're underactive and overeating.

Also, some people just dont care. They know it's unhealthy and possibly shortening their life, but they like themselves and/or they like to eat, so they keep doing it.

Lack of education or knowledge is also a problem. There’s people who want to lose weight and are willing to workout, but they don’t know what to do or eat exactly and end up getting frustrated and give up.

Finally, sometimes it’s genetic or a health issue, but usually that doesn’t force someone to be grossly overweight.

 

Now for the real question --

Why are there so many obese people in America?

/Ronny post

 

That's what stuck out to me out of everything you wrote......that's not a very realistic way of going about losing weight...constantly looking at the scale, worrying about every change, especially on a day by day basis.....never ever ever focus on your weight like that. It'll break your confidence quickly. You're not going to loss or gain actual fat or muscle in 24 hrs. It's fluid or food that comes and goes.

What are you doing during those 2 hrs at the gym?