ok, follow up to noah's FAT thread

[vash]

just want to hear your opinions..

what if, your daughter or wife started putting on the pounds? let make it significant pounds, for arguement's sake.

[bryanthompson]

what if, your daughter or wife started smoking? let make it 2-3 packs a day, for arguement's sake.

It's the _same_ thing. Both are health risks, yet for some reason we worry about hurting fatty's feelings, but not a smoker's.

[bryanthompson]

Are you guys really going to let me get away with that? I had a damn good argument, but come on, put up a fight at least

[A Quiet Boom]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
Are you guys really going to let me get away with that? I had a damn good argument, but come on, put up a fight at least

Can't argue when I agree and I'm a smoker. My wife's self esteem drops in direct proportion to weight gain so it's also a mental health issue. I'd have to be a little more careful if my daughter ever put on weight, don't want to risk her having an eating disorder. FWIW I'd get upset if my wife went on a crash diet or took pills to lose weight as well, this is the person I plan to spend the rest of my life with, I'd like that to be a long time.

P.S. After the inspiration from others on the OT board I plan to quit smoking, after 16 years I've never once tried. My plan to clear out my gym in the basement and take the frustration on the weights. My goal is to pack on 20lbs muscle this year, I figure I HAVE to quit smoking to do that. So if I'm grumpy next week you'll know why

[ronin]

treadmill, baby. treadmill

[COLDBASS]

Family Health Club Memberships...Then follow up with an Atkins type diet, that is, cut down on Carbs/starch...

Me, I love to eat bread, muffins, donuts, biscuits. Once I cut that out, started working out daily at Bally's, I dropped 35 lbs and increased my strength 3-fold....

Also, a friend pass last Spring of a heart attack, he was only 43, I am 47...

Bob

[Overpaid Slacker]

I've had this convo. with the grilf ... she started putting on the lbs, probably weighed about 10-12 more than when we'd met. This happens frequently to my girlfriends b/c I eat a lot of meat and drink more than they're used to.

She wasn't happy w/ her weight and asked if it bothered me and I said "yes, it does". I told her it's not that I'm going to love/care about her less, but that I'm less physically attracted to her. I'm not going to lie and say "it's OK" when I'm simply less turned on by someone who is "heavier."

And part of it is self-discipline ... I require it of my girlfriends for a variety of reasons, and if you can't shed a few lbs when you want to, or can't maintain a reasonable weight, it bespeaks poor self-discipline.

JP

[TerryBPP]

Since I started dating my current girlfriend a year ago she and I both have gained 20lbs. She was a fit 120 and now she is 140. I went from 165 to 185. I have recently started diet and excersizing. She on the other had has the worst diet I have ever seen and will not excersize. She always complains about being heavy but has 0 will power. Her last boyfriend was a trainer and was very hard on her about her diet and she hated him for it. So I feel like I can't say much. Any suggestions?

[COLDBASS]

Yes, start cooking healthy meals (Poultry, fish, lots and lots of salads). Gradually, start preparing her a light lunch, get her "hooked". OTOH, if she doesnt change her behaviour and you have, you may have some hard challenges ahead.

Excersize, same thing, start with walking a pet (dog, or Llama ), progress into light jogging or light runs at the beach.

You also have to combined this with nutritional supplements.
I rarely get the carb cravings but at first I was like an addict...

Some of the current nutritional supplements also have appetite suppressants and energy enhancers (typically some form of caffiene or organic equivalent). Just try various products until you find what works best for you. I was foutunate in that my local GNC store Manager is also a nutritionist, so this was a tremendous benefit. She is also beautiful (but married )...

Anyhow, dont throw in the towel too quickly, I firmly believe that it is far more difficult to a Female than a Male to shed those lbs...

Good Luck

[Overpaid Slacker]

Terry -
First thing is -- does the add'l weight bother you? If not, then don't get all bent on the principle that she won't join your weight loss regimen. I've dated a number of runners and there was no way in Hell they were going to get me out there jogging (or as I call it "counting telephone polls out of sheer boredom"). A couple of them couldn't handle the fact I didn't want to buy into their regimens. TFB, I said; take your running shoes and left foot-right foot-left foot-right foot your a$$ outta here.

I'd expect (maybe deserve) the same reaction from someone whom I tried to subject to my regimens tho' I knew they were uninterested.

However, if the tonnage does bother you, you can (1) learn to live with it, which many guys do, methinks, (2) try something like Coldbass suggests, which I'd call the "Midol-hidden-in-a-peanutbutter-cup" strategem, or (3) just find the right moment (in matters such as these, there's really no "right" moment, just a "least bad" moment) and tell her how you feel. Tell her you don't want her to feel pressured, and you don't want her to feel you're playing the role of the former bf, but this is how you feel: and I don't know exactly how you feel, so I'm not going to put other words in your mouth detailing how you feel, whether its off-put, disappointed, disgusted, frustrated, unattracted to her, etc.

Though I'd be very very careful about saying anything that would permit her to twist into, or even imply that you're saying "I'm going to break up with you b/c you're fat". Unless of course, that is what you mean, in which case you should say it... gently.

Chicks are great, peerless in fact, at twisting the carefully chosen words that were actually said into something mean-spirited they get to take personally and throw back in your face later. Be circumspect.

She can lose weight. If it means enough to you to mention it to her, she should understand that it is important. If, essentially, she says "screw you" I'm not going to be the fit person who wooed you, I'm going for epic, Kirstey Alley-sized proportions, then you've got to decide if you want to be with someone to whom your opinions and/or ability to be attracted to them means so little.

My $0.02.

Disclaimer -- my forthrightness has wrecked a couple of my prior relationships, no doubt ... but those were the relationships that really shouldn't have continued anyway; whether it was b/c they couldn't withstand, honest (though tender) forthrightness or the fact that there were some things that were so wrong that I had to be forthright about it to begin with.

JP

[ronin]

Originally posted by Overpaid Slacker
I've had this convo. with the grilf ...

hmm, grilf. is that short for grill friend? no wonder she has a problem

[Shuie]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
Are you guys really going to let me get away with that? I had a damn good argument, but come on, put up a fight at least

I quit smoking four years ago and almost immediately gained 30lbs

I was a two pack a day smoker, so the weight gain was probably the lesser of two evils.

[A Quiet Boom]

Originally posted by Shuie
I quit smoking four years ago and almost immediately gained 30lbs

I was a two pack a day smoker, so the weight gain was probably the lesser of two evils.

Well that's what I'm hoping for, I'm tired of being stuck at less than 150lbs. I've got a high metabolism which makes it REAL hard for me to gain weight.

I agree with being forthright to women about weight but you have to be part of the solution if you want her to succeed. My wife has a few pounds she wants to drop and I've got a bunch I want to gain so we've worked out a deal. She will prepare the normal amount of food, reduce her portion and give it to me. Then she will do aerobic exercise while I'm doing anaerobic lifting. This way we both get what we want.

[COLDBASS]

Originally posted by A Quiet Boom
Well that's what I'm hoping for, I'm tired of being stuck at less than 150lbs. I've got a high metabolism which makes it REAL hard for me to gain weight.

I agree with being forthright to women about weight but you have to be part of the solution if you want her to succeed. My wife has a few pounds she wants to drop and I've got a bunch I want to gain so we've worked out a deal. She will prepare the normal amount of food, reduce her portion and give it to me. Then she will do aerobic exercise while I'm doing anaerobic lifting. This way we both get what we want.

I have a friend with the same condition. He = 6'2" 155 Wife = 5'7" 200 lbs...

He is one of "those" types that can consume Beer, Donuts, and Pizza without gaining an ounce...bastard ...LOL

Hmmmm...donuts...er, gotta run...

[goat]

Yes I would have to agree as a couple both have to help each other with diet and excerise. Or get some wild hunting dogs and make her field them for a few hours a day, she will lean out in no time.

[Ed Bighi]

Diets, exercise, all good. But screw all that. Move to europe, eat real food and lots of it. Real cheese, real meat, and lose weight to boot. Heck, every time I go over there, I eat like a pig, barely exercise, eat some more and come back weighing less. Much better choice in my book.

But joking aside, I have seen some truth to the above statement. One time I intentionally went down to my family's farm in Brazil for three weeks to eat lots while doing nothing but reading, looking at the scenery all day and hanging out by the pool. We ate big steaks and vegetables for lunch and dinner every day along with some fruits and other Brazilian desserts. Our farm has a couple of hundred heads of free range cattle, so the steaks were a given. Very fresh obviously. The fruits and vegetables from the fields. The water from a waterfall on the property. Nothing funny added to the food in it's growth process. Again, I stress the fact that we ate our asses off and did not do much. Well, my wife and I did not gain any weight. We actually lost some. If we had exercised a little or maybe eaten a little less, we could have lost some more.

But anyway, since that event and some others where I went abroad and came back lighter after indulgence, I have had some serious doubts about the food that is produced in the US. I'll eat it since I don't have a choice, but at some point I'll have to get out of Disney for my own health.

[A Quiet Boom]

Ed, what you're talking about is one of the premises behind the South Beach diet. Nothing enriched or fortified, fresh food not processed, whole grains, etc.

At 5'8" or so and 148# I can't move to another country, I'd disappear! Heck I only got up to 148 from 125 three years ago. It was crazy all I did was eat and lift, I was always full and always sore somewhere. I did however at least double my strength on every exercise.

One of my relatives by marriage has been overweight all her life, went on the SB diet and looks fantastic and she's kept it off for about a year now.

[Ed Bighi]

That diet works. Actually, anything that cuts the refined sugar out works. United States has the highest per-capita sugar consumption in the world. Though not the highest fat consumption. Considering we are the most obese by far, do the math. It isn't the fat. It never was. The way I look at it, when you walk in a grocery store, go along the walls and avoid the isles. Get the produce dept, the meat, poutry and fish dept, the cheeses, and leave. What is in the aisles, other than maybe tuna and a few other things, is crap.

My wife's uncle was the president of Goya foods for years until recently. He's always told me that there is very little profit in protein. It's not even half as profitable as carbohydrates. He says the big bucks are in carbs. Cereal is the holy grail of profit. Atkins always felt that there was some backscratching going on when the food pyramid was conceived. After all, the highest profit items with the largest lobbies are at the top. Remember that nothing is what it seems when there is money involved.

But even if someone tries to eat right, I still feel that there is too much funny business going on with the engineering of foods over here. Let me tell you, there is a big difference between eating a steak from a cow raised in a pen in Texas and one from the pampas in Argentina or the grassy fields of New Zealand. And then people wonder why the europeans aren't too interested in importing US food items.

A while back someone asked me why europeans are concerned with engineered foods. I told him about one time in Portugal, when I stopped at a small town for lunch and ate one particularly tasty fish among other fine tasting fish. After a 80 km drive to another town to stay for the night, I go to dinner and ask for the same fish I had for lunch. I was told they didn't have that there. For that, the waiter tells me, I would have to go to the town I was at for lunch. I proceed to tell him that it was only 80 km away. Then he tells me that, after all, it's 80 km. That distance, he said, would make the fish no longer fresh and they have no interest in that.

Then there were the sheer number of houses, with tiny backyards filled with grapes and vegetables for personal use. Now you tell me, would these people be interested in an abnormally large tomato or a super cow? Good, bad, who cares. Why eat that crap when you can get pretty good tomatoes from your neighbor's back yard. Or a good hog from the farm on the other side of town. So there you go.

[A Quiet Boom]

Ed, I remember hearing somewhere that engineered foods are causing the early onset of puberty, particularily in girls. Have you heard that?

[Ed Bighi]

The results of engineered foods, or long term results of popping pills and other things of that nature, is something that takes decades to really see the result of. So who knows. There will be plenty of bull***** on both sides with the truth somewhere in between. But I like the crap I eat to be as normal and natural as possible.

But here is something else to ponder over when it comes to food and smoking since someone else here mentioned it. Japan and Switzerland both have many more smokers than we do in the US. These are two interesting countries to use in the comparison being that Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world. Switzerland second. Sure we know that the Japanese eat much better than we do. But they have the highest percentage of smokers in the industrialized world. But this does not seem to affect their life expectancy. Switzerland, on the other hand, is a country where fat is plentiful in foods. Then there is Appenzeller, Gruyere, Emmentaler and plenty of chocoloate consumed. The highest chocolate consumption in fact. Top it off, those lucky bastards (for a lot of other things as well) get a mixture of Italian, German and French cuisine. And they smoke more than us. But they are still far less obese than we are, and have the second best life expectancy. So there goes the "overeating is the lesser of two evils" theory.

But who needs statistics. Go and find a skinny elderly person smoking. No problem. There are plenty in Europe and Asia. Now go and find an obese elderly person. It's a hell of a lot harder to do. Sure, maybe those ancient smokers are the lucky few that made it since smoking killed the rest right? But show me the lucky few obese elderly. You will find less obese elderly in obese US than elderly smokers in Asia. As far as I have seen they are more scarce. The way I look at it, overindulgence killed those obese folks before the smoking killed the skinny smokers. So as far as I am concerned, food is just as efficient a killer if abused. Maybe more so.