Io Zeno

The bill was never serious.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n3790418.shtml

Colette Meiji

Many people could reduce their weight through better diet and exercise.

Many could be helped with proper health/psychiatric care / physical therapy / diet and exercise.

Obesity causes health problems as well. For most people these conditions go untreated. This could be remedied to an extent.

Its the Lazy and "their own fault" which is problematic. I feel after a fair amount of reading on this(as I mentioned earlier) that we are biologically pre-dispositioned to horde calories, crave fat, and conserve energy. And our modern lifestyle just makes this situation worse, both by curtailing our free time and giving us lots of sedentary diversions.

Surreal

20-40 lbs, yeah... they can probably make a few changes that will bring them back in range. Mostly because they're metabolism hasn't been damaged at that point.

40+ It depends so much on age, level of mobility, genes and history. When you start talking 80, 100, 150 lbs, that's a person who either has significant co-factors like one of my dear friends with PCOS or whose suffered an injury. And once you're that overweight, the biological changes to brain and metabolism add a tremendous additional burden.

200+ That person has a serious underlying medical condition.

What I've been raising hell about is that the tipping point has been moved in the last 25 years. There's a reason that obesity has increased 60%.. and its not solely an aging population, or overindulgence. It's the degrading of our food supply, the erosion of personal income and time, and our crappy urban design, among other things.

For example, I linked to the studies on rats and the brain alterations of a sugary diet and their surprising results that the rats only had to taste the "sweet" to have a dopamine response. So consider the below.

Diet Soda Increases Risk of Overweight and Obesity 41%

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Surreal

I picked the first one that came up. I recall similar proposals in the UK and Wisconsin (or maybe it was Minnesota)

Io Zeno

I just googled it because I was curious.

Chip Midnight

Food is an area where the pure capitalistic drive to maximize profits as the ultimate goal really ends up fucking us over. We need an FDA that isn't in the pocket of the food and drug industries and some much stiffer truth in advertising laws. Then at least people could make more informed choices. Food is so deceptively marketed.

Colette Meiji

The official FDA Food pyramid

Your ticket to "healthy" eating your way into a bigger dress size



Look at all the low fiber carbs .. yum yum insulin roller coaster.

Surreal

Now I'm going to answer for myself... since ironically, I'm the poster child for innocent fat person right now. genetic predisposition + female + over 40 + injury + illness + drugs.
(I'm so rarely innocent)

Sure I can benefit from diet and exercise and once I pep talk myself back up, I'll get back on the horse - Wednesday actually.

But it's not going to be easy... nor pleasant.. nor safe to be around It's going to be 5th circle of hell difficult.

Imagine that you have to spend the next year hungry. All the time. And coupled with that hunger, you get to feel exhausted and vaguely sick a lot of the time. And no, I'm not exaggerating. This is exactly my experience.

Imagine that you have to pay attention to every thing you put in your mouth, analyze and record it. Also, you have to play games with your metabolism. Three weeks of 1300 calories a day, then a week of 1000 calories a day. Otherwise, the metabolism assumes you're starving (you are) and adjusts to conserve fuel.

Consider that going out to eat with friends is fraught with calorie pitfalls. Not only do you get to watch other folks eating delicious food, but you can blow 1000 calories in a restaurant in seconds.

No alcohol - calories. No sugar whatsoever, not even fruit because it makes the hunger worse.

I'm taking pain drugs which have to be taken with food. Yay!!

And then there's exercise. No 30 minutes 3 times a week is going to even raise my pulse. I'm going to have to exercise 5 days out of 7. First stretching, then strength, then cardio. Luckily, I'm unemployed, so I have a couple of hours a day to devote to this.

And I'm one of those folks who has never had an endorphin burn from exercise. In spite of hiking over 200 miles of mountains. In spite of bicycling from Bremen to Hanover. And I've got injured knees now too.

If I didn't want my knees back so bad, I think I'd just say fuck it. Honestly, I'd rather do heroin for a year, then go through rehab. It would probably suck less.

And just to be clear, the above isn't an invite to a pity party. It's meant to be a realistic view into the task facing me.

Surreal

I don't usually advocate drugs, but frankly, we need better drugs.

I'm seriously considering finding a doctor who will prescribe me amphetamines. I'm well aware of the risk to your heart and since personally I'm at low risk, it would be worth the trade off to not be consumed by hunger.

Colette Meiji

I am starting a diet tomorrow as well. You can always PM me and rant. Or commiserate. Or whatever.

Arilynn

Good luck, Surreal! I will be cheering you on from "Let's Be Fit".

Colette Meiji

Whats worse is the site that picture comes from ...

http://www.fda.gov/diabetes/pyramid.gif

Lets recommend all those low fiber carbs to .. diabetics .. UGH.

Surreal

In other news, Jenny Craig was sold to Nestle.

And Weight Watchers is owned by Heinz.

Io Zeno

Good Luck, Surreal. I would give you speed if I had any, heh.

Chip Midnight

That really sucks, Surreal, and I don't envy you having to go through it at all, and though I've always had the opposite problem of being underweight and not wanting to eat enough calories I can relate to what the constant hunger is like. I think it's a lot like how nicotine withdrawal feels. It's hard to blame anyone for not wanting to feel awful all the time even if it'd be good for them. I've never been able to kick smoking so I'm the last person qualified to criticize anyone for not climbing those kinds of mountains.

Surreal

Segueing back to nicotine, or other drugs that cause dopamine responses, I wonder why we haven't seen an antagonist. Surely that would be the holy grail of pharmaceuticals, something that effectively suppresses appetite without killing you.

I've got 5 siblings living. I'm the only one who constantly battles appetite, but I'm also the only one who doesn't smoke or have a drug problem. I don't think its a coincidence.

Vaelissa Cortes

It really does mean that some people really do have issues other than being lazy and cannot help their weight. An exception can be many things, I am not going to list every possible cause of obesity, so I generalized it.

Ok, nevermind, this appears to be pointless. I never was playing games and am not trying to stealth insult anybody. Jesus, people.

Wow, you guys really are not grasping it are you?

Fine! I take it all back, friendly obese people will make comfortable pillows to lean on during long flights, so long as they do not mind! As for smokers (that just keeps coming up!), I can breathe through the respirator if they are around. Just keep me from illogical people with fixed viewpoints that are dead set on being hostile.

Hmm..





Ah, there we go! SLU just got a lot more intelligent and friendly.

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People are dumb .

RandoymRandt

I don't know anyone without an addiction, even to exercise, or TV, or talking on the phone, where not doing that particular thing would cause them stress and some kind of withdrawl/craving.

Colette Meiji

I win again.

RandoymRandt

Vael, I wasn't even emotionally involved because I don't care what you think, but after that last post now you've even pissed me off.

Chip Midnight

I'm actually hard pressed to think of a group of people I'd rather be stuck on a plane with than the PRS regulars.

Joshua Nightshade

Kinda defeats the point of making public spectacle of putting someone on ignore when you subsequently laugh at their post making fun of it.

Vaelissa Cortes

I'm keeping myself amused , and making a lot of friends, apparently.

CaleVinson

I believed they should be "de-planed" - at altitude.

This would have the advantage of freeing up seat-space, thereby alleviating some of the stress noted in this thread. A win-win for everyone, truly.

Evil Cale

Willow Matthews

Evil Cale is truly a glorious person when she quotes you and not only agrees with you, but indeed expands upon your thoughts for the lulz.