Does America have a weight issue?

[AustinTXCat]

Yes. Far too many impatient folks in this country.



Joking aside, obesity is a deadly serious issue.

 

[CaptainBoogerBuns]

Should fat shaming come back in style?

 

[WayneDougan]

I work out 6 mornings a week between 1 to 1 1/2 hours each (moderate to light heavy). Walk the monster every day at least 30 minutes, clean the house twice a week, teach a Karate class at least once a week (evenings), play softball twice a week (Tuesday evenings and Sunday afternoons) during the spring, summer and fall, cut the grass once a week during the spring, summer, and fall, and work the honey do list, (wife works) shopping, fix things in house etc..., but still struggle to keep the weight off because, I eat whatever I want. But I managed not to go over 210lbs for the holidays this year (in the past 220 to 230 each year).

New Years resolution is to still eat what I want, but in moderation. 2400 calories a day max. We shall see how that goes. Weighed in just minutes ago at 206lbs.

I'm a younger version of you.

 

[ukcatz12]

People were more active in the 30s and 40s for one thing. The majority of the country worked in farming or some type of manual labor. Desk jobs were not plentiful. And people drove far less.

Our entire society is structured in a way that makes people fat unless you pay close attention. The vast majority of our country isn't walkable, people work long hours without much time to exercise or cook healthy meals, and like you said everyone works in an office. And people have no idea what actually makes them fat. An 8 oz. glass of orange juice has 110 calories, an 8 oz. Coke has 90. People will drink orange juice thinking it's the healthy choice and continue to get fat.

A 20 oz Coke is 240 calories I believe. If you drink one of those every other day and that Coke is over your calorie budget for the day that's about 10-12 pounds gained in a year. Now continue that pattern for someone's adult life and it's quite easy to get to the point where you're 30-40 pounds overweight.

 

[AmericanDragon]

People were more active in the 30s and 40s for one thing. The majority of the country worked in farming or some type of manual labor. Desk jobs were not plentiful. And people drove far less.

Much of America is not remotely suited to any form of transportation but motorized these days, even just for regular daily life. Like I live in the same city as my job. If I had to use a bike to get to work, Google Maps says it would take 44 minutes. And this is not a particularly large city by any means.

 

[AmericanDragon]

Should fat shaming come back in style?

You know those types that get motivated to prove people wrong for talking shit or they go out of their way to accomplish something just because someone told them they couldn't? Fat shaming could potentially work on them.

 

[WayneDougan]

Our entire society is structured in a way that makes people fat unless you pay close attention. The vast majority of our country isn't walkable, people work long hours without much time to exercise or cook healthy meals, and like you said everyone works in an office. And people have no idea what actually makes them fat. An 8 oz. glass of orange juice has 110 calories, an 8 oz. Coke has 90. People will drink orange juice thinking it's the healthy choice and continue to get fat.

A 20 oz Coke is 240 calories I believe. If you drink one of those every other day and that Coke is over your calorie budget for the day that's about 10-12 pounds gained in a year. Now continue that pattern for someone's adult life and it's quite easy to get to the point where you're 30-40 pounds overweight.

The daily differences you mention make a HUGE difference. Since COVID I was running around 900 miles a year. Last year I was back to work and traveling again and let the running slip. Last year I ran 400 miles (exactly).

I burn 130 calories per mile. 3,500 calories is basically one pound of body weight. So 130 calories X 500 miles missed = 65,000 calories not burned last year. Divide that by 3,500 and it's 18.5 lbs. I gained roughly that much last year. Sad.

 

[AmericanDragon]

Our entire society is structured in a way that makes people fat unless you pay close attention. The vast majority of our country isn't walkable, people work long hours without much time to exercise or cook healthy meals, and like you said everyone works in an office. And people have no idea what actually makes them fat. An 8 oz. glass of orange juice has 110 calories, an 8 oz. Coke has 90. People will drink orange juice thinking it's the healthy choice and continue to get fat.

A 20 oz Coke is 240 calories I believe. If you drink one of those every other day and that Coke is over your calorie budget for the day that's about 10-12 pounds gained in a year. Now continue that pattern for someone's adult life and it's quite easy to get to the point where you're 30-40 pounds overweight.

And American food producers love to pump everything full of sugar when it's not necessary. Which makes it so incredibly hard for people with difficult to manage diabetes to keep their diabetes in control. There's sugar thrown into *ucking everything. And to eat really healthy can get really expensive.

But really our relationship with food is way out of whack. Food has become a pleasure industry as much as anything else - we want to eat something good, and eat a lot of it, while avoiding eating something that doesn't taste good even if it's beneficial. That should be something you do on special occasions or as a treat, not like daily routine.

 

[JonathanW]

16-8 intermittent eating and fasting is supposed to work if you get your food within the 8-hour period. I am trying the 10:00 am to 6 pm eating and am now limiting my calorie intake to 2400 in a day. A month of this and we shall see.

I did the intermittent fasting 2 years ago. I would eat between 10:30-6:30. At the same time I tried to keep my calories around 1500, but there were days I got up to 1800, maybe even a few around 2000 or a little over. But I also tried to do something every day (rowing machine, or walk, or pickleball; I was >50 so nothing crazy). Even though it was cold some days (started in mid-Oct), if it was too cold, I went to the mall that was 2 miles away and would walk in there at night for an hour just before closing (I calculated that 3 loops of the top and bottom levels was 3 miles). I created a spreadsheet to track that I did some type of exercise every day, and ballpark how many calories every day. I think tracking those helped too. As part of the calories I limited the cokes to 1 per day.
And as a result I think I lost about 25 lbs in 3 months.

 

[Caveman Catfan]

Yeah, man, for like 40-50 years.

But of course, there’s women right now on Facebook gassing up the local obese monster and telling her she’s beautiful all while she has Little Debbie’s falling out of her pockets.

It’s as if the answer to the problem of fat shaming is to pretend morbid obesity is healthy or generally beautiful. Or, entertaining.