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Calories in must equal to or be less than calories consumed. If you have a psychiatric disorder that causes you to consume more calories than you should, see a shrink, take your meds, and get it under control, then lose the weight. Yes, it is that easy.
Almost easy. A lot of the psychiatric meds cause weight gain. I used to work for a mental health program and the clients took a various types of psych meds. No matter how much they tried, the weight didn't come off. They ate right (we were there monitoring them 24/7), exercised until blue in the face and it didn't work. I had one or two clients that stopped the meds because of the weight gain and ended up in the hospital. Skinny but in the hospital.
The only obese people that I feel any sympathy for are the VERY few who actually have an uncontrollable medical condition, such as a problem with the thyroid. I don't feel sorry for people who shovel disgusting food into their mouths and then refuse to take the stairs instead of the elevator because of their sheer laziness. Or for people who make excuses and refuse to except responsibility for their actions. Right now i'm rubbing my thumb and index finger together. Why, you ask? Because I'm playing the world's smallest fiddle.
It's pretty damn simple: Stop eating so much and get off of your ass!
People in the Western world (especially America) have been leading lives of ease and comfort for far too long. People want instant satisfaction. They want to be able to eat whatever they want and they want their food delivered to them FAST. As they binge on their Mcdonalds they simply have no idea what it means to truly be hungry and without food, nor do they seem to care.
The same goes for exercise: No one walks or bikes anywhere as it's not FAST enough and gosh, how boring is going for a walk outside when I could be eating donuts and watching Deadliest Catch on TV. People shun solid good old-fashioned exercise and instead buy "exercise" video games for their wii consoles, as if it were all supposed to be a big fun game.
The OP tries to use the argument that our bodies are meant to gain weight but seems to not acknowledge that our bodies are also meant (as someone else already mentioned) to be lean, muscular, and capable of doing physical activities for hours on end. Sitting at a desk all day and staring at a bright digital screen and eating highly processed foods is not natural, and therefore leads to an unnatural physical state that we call obesity.
Does anyone else find it absolutely repulsive that in MOST non-western countries around the world large portions of the population are malnourished and nearly emaciated while gluttonous Americans have cased an obesity EPIDEMIC?
Bottom line, the plain truth is that MOST weight problems are caused by consuming more calories than you burn. You can argue that one until you're blue in the face, and throw the small percentage of the population with true medical issues at us until hell freezes over, but it won't change the fact that for nearly all fat people -- including you the OP -- the cause is if you eat more calories than you need, you will gain weight.
That covers about 97% of the obese population. I don't see why that's so difficult to grasp. You're a 400 lb person because you won't stop putting food in your mouth.
Not saying you're wrong, and in fact it makes logical sense, but where did you come up with the 97% figure? Is that generally accepted among obesity researchers?
Almost easy. A lot of the psychiatric meds cause weight gain. I used to work for a mental health program and the clients took a various types of psych meds. No matter how much they tried, the weight didn't come off. They ate right (we were there monitoring them 24/7), exercised until blue in the face and it didn't work. I had one or two clients that stopped the meds because of the weight gain and ended up in the hospital. Skinny but in the hospital.
But there are plenty that don't. The key is to find the right one. For example a lot of anti-depressants cause weight gain, but Topomax, a mood stabalizer (also used to control migraines) actually helps in weight loss. There are options, people need to pursue them rather than making excuses.
Does anyone else find it absolutely repulsive that in MOST non-western countries around the world large portions of the population are malnourished and nearly emaciated while gluttonous Americans have cased an obesity EPIDEMIC?
Not particularly for two reasons. First, I refuse to take accountability for things that I neither caused nor can control. I wear a size six and am 5'6"--obviously not overweitght. I'm not naturaly slim, I watch what I eat and try to get at least some excercise every day--lately it's been "pulling an OJ" through the airport to make a connection. Unfortunately you can't legislate common sense, or we wouldn't have this epidemic of obesity.
Second, in the majority of countries where starvation is a problem, the root cause is corrupt governments. We could send enough food to feed everyone in that nation for a year, and 90% of it would never get where it's actually needed, but rather would be seized by the government and used for ill gotten gain.
What I don't get is why people give a damn. So what if someone's fat or obese? It doesn't affect your life in a significant way, so cry more.
Let me see...
The 300 pound guy sitting in the seat next to me as well as overflowing into mine yesterday, and getting pissed when I put the armrest down. Uh, buy two seats, buddy, you obviously need them.
The increasing medical costs to treat obesity related disease which also leads to the increased health insurance costs for those of us responsible enough to take care of ourselves.
The increased taxes we pay to pay for these people who abuse their bodies and then collect SSDI and medicaid and sit at home on their lazy fat asses letting the rest of us support them.
Should I keep going?
You betcha obese people affect our lives in a negative way.
i love how ALL fat people either have a thyroid conditon or they sit on their arses all day shoveling down boxes of donuts....
i can tell you that is, in many case, not the truth at all...
firstly the med issue...sure there are a few (and i mean a few, ive tried most of them) anti-depresants that do not cause weight gain, those meds however are NOT suited to many patients for many reasons...your right...it IS about finding the right meds...but whats right for your weight control issues may not be right for your chemical makeup and would be absolutly usless (topomax for example actually sent me into a MAJOR manic episode that lasted for almost 2 weeks and i had to be hospitalized because id stopped eating all together and couldnt sleep for more than 5 minutes, it also caused me to haluciate audially and visually and increased my anxiety...yup, you can bet that the med that currently seems to be agreeing with me and helping me is one well known for increased risk of weight gain...
secondly...there are plenty of fat people out there that try dang hard...
studies are now showing that for people with 100lbs or more to loose theres a 93% failure rate for keeping that weight off...diets in obese people are showing simply not to work in the long run.
there are also plenty of medical conditions that can cause gain or make it hard to loose...not just thyroid.
then theres the poor people who have horrible metaboslisms, genetics play a-part too...
that being said ill share my story:
im 25 yrs old...growing up i was always a chubby kid...yet i ate like a mouse, my parents had me at the dr frequently worried that i wasnt eating enough, but because i was chubby, i was "just fine"
i didnt sit inside on video games, we didnt even have a tv, when it rained i was at my frineds housees playing, when it wasnt raining we were running around the feilds next to my house, picking berries, climbing trees, building forts and catching frogs in the streams...when not at home i was at my grandparents little farm where i helped out, cleaning/mucking stalls, helping dig and pick produce...
i didnt stop, yet was always chubby...
we didnt eat junk, no processed foods, everythign was made from scratch, though being british our diet was heavy on the carbs (this was also 20+ yrs ago before the "carbs are evil" phase. a meal consisted of baked chicken and fresh veggies with a potatoe ect...fruit was our snacks, picked dierctly off the tree, and never to excess (because if we ate more than 1-2 peices a day grandad got angry lol)
and yet...still i was always the fat kid. (oh and he was VERY anti hormone...we even raised our own meats organically)
i started developing at 7 years old...first period 2 weeks after my 7th birthday...
as time progressed i ended up with cycsts on my ovaries and started birth control to help with the PCOS at 11, by 13 they had to remove one ovary, and a small section of my womb.
i continued to gain weight, even though i started excersizing harder, i started displaying anorexic behaviours...but it was "ok" because i had "more than a few lbs to loose" starving myself and excersizing like crazy i continued to balloon up over the years...in highscool i got my anorexic behaviours under control..because well...they wernt helping...and i stopped excersizing all together, id even avoid gym...guess what...during that time i maintained...but i wasnt healthy.
into adult hood i decided i had to get a grip on my weight, i talked to my dr who told me i needed to diet and excersize...ok fine....so i did, after 6 months and gained weght i whent back and told him, his responce was i "must be cheating" so i started keeping strict journals, and ive worn a pedomiter every day since i was 18...
but still i "must be cheating" because the weight just wouldnt drop.
i was consuming 1000-1200 calories a day in lean meats, never fried as greasy foods upset my tummy, i avoided processed sugar because i was getting migranes from it...
dinner was 1/2 a chicken breast grilled with a dark green leafy salad and a drizzle of olive oil and vinegar, or a 4oz steak with 1/2 a baked potatoe...
i was excersizing 7 days a week, 3-5 miles a day walking, plus cardio like the bike daily, id also swim, do yoga and pilates, hulahoop and dance, and this was all ontop of also walking my dogs 2 miles twice daily (so on a light day i was walking 7 miles minimum, doing 1/2 hour heavy cardio on the bike and doing yoga)
the weight continued to climb...
i saw a dietician who couldnt belive i was eating what i said i was because given the numbers and the excersize i shoudl look like a skeleton...so she put me on a 1 week supervised diet and excersize program...under her care i gained 5lbs...
thyroid test came back normal, all blood work came back normal, infact i was as healthy as a horse in terms of numbers, my blood sugar is PERFECT, my cholesterol is perfect, kidney and liver fine...ect...
she told me she had no clue and sent me back to my dr...
at 25 yrs old id hit 350lbs, and not long after, while all my other numbers were fine i noticed during my regular routein my hips ached and my knee hurt, an old injury to my ankel also started acting up and i felt tired...
i knew it was all weight related and was in a very dark place, i couldnt even walk past a bakery without the smell packing 5lbs on...
so i attended a weight loss surgery seminar...
now during these years id also tried and failed at weight watchers, jenny craig, lean cuiseene, atkins, southbeach, and many more.
even deit pills which i took for 6 months did nothing more than agrivate my mental disorders.
(i might add also that during many of those years i worked as a dog daycare supivisor and later a zoo keeper, i didnt even have a sedentary job...)
so i attended a seminar at the local hospital (which is one of the top centers in the country for WLS) and decided to move forward with the process...
the tests started...and it was very quickly revealed that i had sleep apnea and limited lung function, the other aches were agrivated by weight as id thought also...
once i revealed the PCOS and partial hysterectomy the dr let out a "ahh..." problem #1, the hormone changes had kicked my tush....
then as we got into my history a bigger picture formed, id killed my metaoblism during my anorexic stage, despite not loosing weight from it id managed to screw my body royally.
and then came the xrays and such...
those xrays showed a rather large growth in my stomach...the drs conclusion that that had been there forever and over the years had slowly grown and was causing the movment of food to slow down causing my body to absorb more...
add to it all an obviously natural propensity to be heavy, out of whak hormones (the reason behind me starting my periods at 7) genetics and everything else...
we did decide to move on with the surgery, i passed my psych testing (BTW bing eaters if they admit to it and its not under control will NOT be aproved for surgery in most cases as its detrimental to the surgery) and moved on...i had gastric bypass (lap wasnt an option as they had to remove the mass while in there (which thank goodness was not cancerous)
i had the surgery 12 weeks ago, i eat a little less than i was eating before surgery on my 'normal" diet, and drink alot more (fluid intake is incredibly important) and have dropped almost 60lbs...
what this incredibly long ramble is trying to say...dont assume because someones fat they hide in their closet with a box of doughnuts stuffing their feelings through their mouth...just because someones fat dont assume they never leave the couch, and certainly dont assume you KNOW why they are fat...
not everyone, (just like not every super skinny person is anorexic, and not every super built person does steroids) fits into one little cookie cutter shape!
all that being said, as a fat person i know im large, i do have a pet peeve with large people not accepting themselves as such and not taking nessicary precautions to prevent it from effecting other people.
personally even at 350lbs i didnt have a large/wide butt, i fit in a normal sized airplain seat or movie theater seat with the arms down without spillage...but i was always very aware and had that been the case i woudl buy the extra seat (or wait untill the plane took off and relocate myself to an area where there was a couple empty seats) clothing too, noone should cram themselves into clothing 2 sizes too small, fat folks even more so...
i understand i am one of the few, my medical conditions, combined with genetics and years of dr and peer pressure actually made my chances of loosing weight on my own practically impossible...
and yes, there are many fat people sitting on their couches nomming on a box of cookies getting up only to grab another bag of chips or order pizza...
BUT, i also think its incredibly small minded for anyone to ASSUME...when they look at a fat person that thats the case.
Excellent post #49 by Foxywench above. No one can fail to have the deepest sympathy for her predicament and what she has gone through, not the least of which are the false assumptions applied to her by others. Also, I appreciate the honesty in recognizing that many obese people are indeed lazy and unwilling to make serious efforts in their own behalf, even though Foxywench is not among them. Foxywench, may you continue to have good results from your surgery!
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Unfortunately you can't legislate common sense, or we wouldn't have this epidemic of obesity. 
