Smug, judgmental people who have never had a weight problem

This topic contains 56 replies, has 14 voices, and was last updated by amazinglyso 9 years, 2 months ago.

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hermajtomomi

8:08 pm
10 Aug 14
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Hi kindle, of course I’d like to keep in touch, on this or any other thread. I imagine you will have ticked the little box bottom left of this form, so that you get an email when anyone replies to your post.

One of the great things about the forum is finding kindred spirits. As you’ll see as you read through the various threads, while the initial connection is that we are all up for losing weight and improving our general health, we also discover and discuss many more common interests. We find we have a similar sense of humour, find we like/dislike the same things or have had similar experiences. The list goes on.

I’m intrigued by the fact that you have found your way to the “smug people” thread which started off with my little rant. I’m also intrigued by your “handle” – am I right in thinking that, like me, you have one of those e-reader thingies of the same name? Mine contains 500 books, of which about 70% are waiting to be read, along with many hundreds of “hard copies” lining the walls of our flat.

So over to you.

kindle

9:23 am
11 Aug 14
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Thanks herma, well I usually post on myfitnesspal, and when I leave messages on there people say hi but then thats the end of it!! Ha!!! As for smug people, I have just come back from China where they are generally not smug, but Gee they are so bloody slim!! makes me sick!! LOL . The women have waist sizes that must be about 16 inches and they think they are fat!! I felt like an elephant amoung them. One day a lady handed me a card on the street. It was an advertisment for weight loss pills. Here I was considered slightly puffy, there I was morbidly obese!!
Yes I have a kindle too and I love it, its my friend. But when I got it a friend of mine put 1000s of romance and si-fi books on it which I have no interest in, and now I cant get rid of them. Ah well!! I have lots of hard copies too that have been well read, but Im too mean or lazy to take them into the charity shop. Anyway, nice to meet you. Hows 5;2 going??

jamesblood13

1:21 pm
11 Aug 14
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At the end of the day. BMI doesn’t take anything into account. We are all made differently. We all hold fat differently. BMI is a ‘normal’ proportion and isn’t a indicator of health.

There’s no measure for happiness and that feeling of being able to fit into old clothes, or being able to achieve a certain distance in running far outweighs the feeling of having a too high a BMI level. My BMI says I’m nearly obese yet I play football twice a week and I’m going to be running my 3rd half marathon in 10 weeks. I’m not happy at the moment that I can’t fit into clothes that before summer I could, but I’ve had fun hanging out with my friends and drinking lots of beer. The motivation now is to make myself feel good and increase my self esteem, not to satisfy some government quota for BMI levels!

hermajtomomi

3:27 pm
11 Aug 14
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Well said, james. BMI is no indication of overall health, not to mention happiness.

A couple of months back, there was a news story on the Beeb website about how financial advisors were to undergo training to be able to measure the health and likely longevity of people about to take out annuities and advise them accordingly. For a laugh I clicked on the relevant link to the relevant questionnaire, answered all the questions and was informed that I would make it to a couple of months after my 94th birthday (always assuming that a bus doesn’t mount the pavement tomorrow). It then added that women with my BMI were usually dead at 71 – the subtext being “how come you are still around, you fat old bat?”

After 18 months of 5:2, and yes, I was a fat old bat when I started, due to a lifelong weight problem, exacerbated by steroids prescribed for polymyalgia rheumatica. The steroids cleared the condition up within weeks, but the quack kept me on the expletive deleted things for 2 1/2 so-and-so years. I’ve since learned to disobey docs, whose advice is probably based on pandering to big pharma rather than on proper patient care.

Steroid free, with a year and a half on 5:2 – the only way of eating that has ever worked for me – in the bag, my BMI still says I’m borderline obese (half a kilo less and I’ll be merely overweight, yippee), the mirror says pleasantly rounded with still a little way to go but no longer likely to frighten animals, small children and old ladies. Previously unwearable clothes now fit beautifully while others are far too big and have found their way to the fat ladies’ rail at the charity shop.

Previously raised BP is normal with a minimal dose of medication, cholesterol is under 5 and blood glucose is fine, as it’s always been despite two diabetic, overweight parents. The BMI gurus may think I should be dead, but I ain’t! I still work full-time (freelance linguist), am about to write the final dissertation for my MA (call it a half-marathon for the mind if you like), and though I say it myself, I don’t look quite as ancient as I am and, although no athlete, I can still sprint for a bus. So yah, boo, sucks to BMI.

hermajtomomi

9:55 am
12 Aug 14
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Correction – I’m now merely overweight. Yippee! PS I’m also dyscalculic, i.e. number dyslexic, hence the mistake. As one of our regular posters says, onwards and downwards.

wynnifred

1:45 pm
13 Aug 14
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I don’t think it has anything to do with class. I know many middle class (actually they believe they are middle class but are in fact working class) people who are well educated and are overweight. For those who are socially deprived I agree it is about education. Home economics is now nonexistent and when I was in school in the 80s/90’s we were taught budgeting and how to make a meal on a budget. However, I have not long come back from France where you can buy an apple for aprox 10 -15p bag of cherries for a pound, peach for 15 -20p etc. Here they cost a lot more and when you have no money or cooking skills you are more likely to opt for a pot noodle. I am overweight as I eat health but my potions of food are far too big and enjoy a few glasses of wine and have stopped exercising altogether. We really shouldn’t criticise each other. Thin people also take a great bashing. We are all different but as it proves on here we are doing our very best to lose weight and be healthy. It’s just harder for some of us than others. Anyway, sod those smug ********!

amazinglyso

3:46 pm
8 Sep 15
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What I loathe most about any chat-show host celebrities is that they rarely ever approach the subject of weight in any kind of holistic way – people are(whole)and do not generally compartmentalize parts of themselves or even necessarily think about themselves via psychoanalytical dissection unless they are naively as well thoroughly governed by media-related tat. A healthy obesity does exist in parts of the world that are not westernized and larger women most celebrated in the Congo; Kuwait, Fiji and Jamaica are primary examples.

It is always and often the case that western media have an incessant obsession and skewed notion of even ‘healthy obesity’ that is actually naturally occurring fat that starts at age 15 (puppy-fat) if you excuse the expression. It is certainly not the case at all that these people are larger just because of unhealthy diet patterns; far from it in some countries, just that western societies must go to extremes to lose and maintain excess weight as part and parcel of media pressure and influence,(otherwise)all people everywhere would be overweight no matter where in the world they come from. Vine clearly hasn’t traveled extensively and would know that Cane sugar; Coconut milk, fruit syrup all staple nutrients to people in Africa, China and to some extent in the middle east – yet these staples have their fat-inducing qualities to those with a sedentary lifestyle.

Movement is everything yet we confuse ‘lifestyle choice’ with that of opportunity (lack of)but this requires a separate debate in itself.