first of all, this posting is not intended to flame anybody nor to make fun about anyones weight problems.

i really am curious to know how it could happen that you end up 300+ lbs as a male or 200+ as a female.

surely genetics may play a role but i think here in germany there are also lots of people with bad genetics, borderline-diabetes, hypothyrodism and so on but it is absolutely rare to see men or women being 40 or 45% or even more BF.

yes, there are lots of obese people here too, but not THAT obese, do you understand what i mean?

whenever i watch something on tv about the us, say a report from new york and they just show a street and some pedestrians there are SEVERAL poor guys or girls among them who look like 50% bf+ - does it have to do with bad nutritional education in the childhood ? or the constant availability of sugar-foods (well, its virtually the same here in europe, we`ve got mc d, burgwer king, pizza hut, smarties, pop tarts ..., too, so i dont think thats the point)

again, i do not want to blame anybody for being obese, i really am curious about the reason for what i described above.

thanks a lot for your honest answers.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by levi

I have read articles recently on a study that persons with lower incomes generally have a poor diet and/or are more likely to be overweight. This does not mean everyone of course. I would guess that not being able to afford the better brands of foods that have less additives and fillers would be one reason that poor people tend to be heavier according to what I read. And, for the record, I grew up poor too

The cheaper brands of foods have all kinds of things in them: for instance, I was comparing two brands of chicken broth, the store brand turned out to contain potato starch and said zero carbs, the brand name did not have any starches at all. So I paid one dollar more per can for the better brand. Not everyone can do that though. Also, just about everything in the grocery store has sugar in it.

Why am I so obese? (And you probably have PO'd some people with this post you know) Let's see...where to start...beer, beer, birth control, genetics, beer, and lack of exercise were my downfall.

If I could jump in here with my thoughts ...I was never what you would call terribly obese...the problem with anyone who may have a weight problem is the fact that high carb foods are cheap compared to high protein foods... go to any restaurant and what do they serve... small portions of protein loaded with huge portions of fries, pasta and other high carb foods to fill up the plates...I suspect with most North Americans when served this pre LC we were conditioned to eat what was on our plates..now armed with LC knowledge we can just say no to those cheap high carb items being served...

Bonnie

Oh, you don't want to flame anybody huh

Thread titles like this show your ignorance and bigotry very clearly

I don't go around public forums asking why you are SO stupid do I

Why don't you go spend some more quality time in front of a mirror Zoolander

oh that was too funny ! zoolander !

If you're interested, Levi, read Adiposity 101, on the web. Also hunt down articles by David Garner, Susan Wooley, other so-called "anti-diet" researchers.

The main non-glandular cause of childhood obesity is overeating, often on the heels of horrible physical or sexual abuse (sometimes living in the face of drug addicted parents can "do it" for sensitive children), In effect, children numb this unthinkable pain with the brain chemicals that sweets produce.

The main cause of adult obesity is low-cal dieting. Every low cal diet lowers metabolism. Every inevitiable regain of weight on the heels of one adds fat cells (the only time you can add fat cells other than 0-3 years, puberty, and pregnancy).

this last ends up being pretty ironic. Most of the fat people you see got there not through a dirth of dietary self-control, but through too much. Like me, they probably have lived years and years on 500 calorie/day diets or less. This is REALLY hard to do--try it for a couple years and see!--and all it does is change your set point weight up by X pounds (probably differs from individual to individual) per year while lowering your metabolism permanently.

For me, I'd say my set point went up by 5 pounds per year of VLCDs. And my metabolism lowered, so that now, any calorie intake over 1600, even doing two hours of exercise per day, even eating low carb, causes weight gain. I'll be interested to see the long-term effect of this. It's quite possible that steady low-cal eating can extend one's lifespan. If the cardiac damage I did myself with those diets doesn't catch up to me, heck, I might live to 140! (er, must go re-calculate retirement planning)

HTH. There's some great medical journal reading out there (not the popular press stuff, which is bullshit), and if you want to educate yourself, that'd be wonderful. I love to see folks educate themselves out of whatever sorts of prejudices they have. It gives me faith in a better world.

Hi folks,

This thread was moved from the tripple digits support area to War Zone.

Wa'il

I personally wasn't offended by Levi's question. As you can see he is from Germany, he may not have been able to get his question across in terms that we respond to. I could be wrong, but I think it is just a question of curiousity. Obesity is a huge problem in America. That is why we are all here right? I don't like the word obese, I never have. But it is there. And I have to admit I am. It is a slap in the face, but maybe that is what I need. Levi's question, coming from someone who looks like him seems insulting, but would we have reacted the same way if his picture was different? I'm not trying to make anyone mad, I'm just giving another viewpoint and I could be way off base. The internet is a cold medium. Sometimes it is hard to get things across to people in the way you really want to. That being said.....

Several things lead to my "obesity". I am the only obese member of my family. My sister and I were raised in the same house with the same parents and from childhood I was the chubby one and my sister was the skinny one. Genetics.....somewhat. Overeating ...mainly! I have eaten emotionally since childhood as well, and there wasn't much exercise involved. That is pretty much it. I'm sure convienence foods have alot to do with it too.

I think eating a high protein, low carb diet is pretty much the way out, and I intend to do it for life.

Whitney

come on, folks! why are YOU so ignorant and intolerant??

once again, it is not my aim to accuse someone for his or her body it is just that i (yes, one of the guys some of you point with your finger at and say "oh no, look at this conceited drug-fed a**hole over there what does he think who he is?") really want to know something about the reasons why north-americans tend to be either super-fit or super-obese in comparison to europeans who are normally - well - more in between of these two extremes.

sorry that my avatar may arouse feelings of being a super-loser, but if a lean person is not allowed to ask not-lean persons why they are obese, this is a sad thing.

everyone can ask me whatever he wants as long it is not offensive and i think this is the way we should cooperate with each other - just by telling every lean person asking unconfortabe questions to shut up and leave your forum you will never find acceptence in public.

so thanks to those who tried to answer my question and uuuh good bye to those i have offended by asking why you play in the triple-digits-league i wnt dae to ask you such terrible things again.

Heck this obese thing has been around longer than I have. It is no fun being obese because one thing leads to another. It is the most vicious circle you see we do not excercise enough because we are over weight. Then you get diabetes like I did and you get diabetec pain in your feet and legs so bad you can scream. The doctors say oh there is not much we can do take this insulin so you do not die. What they do not tell you is you will gain in excess of 50 pounds by taking the insulin. I do think the junk food from an early age on is a leading problem here. My mother bless her was 98 pounds and diabetic never heavy in her life went blind from diabetes before they knew to control sugar she told me they never even had meters when she was diagnosed. Diabetes is a horrible disease and most people that are overweight will either get it or don't even know they already have it. Do not ignore it for the damage it does to your body can not be reversed.

Nails it on the head himself....thanks.

I am not at all offended by this question...

I got fat by:

sitting on my arse too often
eating "fun" foods, pizza, fries, pop corn, cheeseburgers with bun
high stress jobs
4 kids including one still born in 5 years
working 3 jobs starting a business at that same time!
did i mention eating when i was stressed and completely giving up on exercise (btw, I once had 8% body fat and looked pretty daggone good because i spent 2 hours in the gym every day too...then real life hit when i was in my 30s)

heres the story

120 lbs as a soph in hs
155 when i graduated, lifting like a mad man, running too
185 when i got thru first year of college
212 when i graduated, really into lifting big and get this, TOOK WEIGHT GAINING POWDER TO ADD MORE MASS!
228 when i got my first full time real job and lived on my own, working more then 55 hours a week...9 years later I left that job weighing 265. Still lifting, occasionally running. Wt going up and down 235-265...then I ballooned up to 298 with all of those stressors and three in diapers sapping all my training time...get the picture. I made choices, the choices were to eat the same or worse but cut way way down on activity and attention to my physique.

so now, no more eating that garbage...the Earthquake still runs and lifts and is a "carbavoid" because I have enough stored fat to live off of for three months im sure.

i hope that helps.

A combination of low fat / low calorie dieting and excessive cardio, severe hypoglycemia and a little insulin resistance had me up to over 241 lbs. I dieted myself fat - it took a few years, it was very frustrating and not much fun.

You'll find mine is a pretty common answer.

As Raz suggested, read Adiposity 101 - it's a real eye opener.

Nat

Amen.

I was an extremely skinny child. Then I hit puberty and developed a pot belly.

My parents were always very health concious. We were not allowed junk food at all. In fact we didn't eat much meat either. We ate a lot of soya, fruit and vegetables.

As soon as the weight started to notice, my parents went ape. Fatty food was banned. I was allowed meals like weetabix, orange juice and banana for breakfast. Actually I stopped eating breakfast at about age 12 and it's only since LCing that I've started eating it again.

My parents weighed and measured my food and weighed me daily. The weight continued to creep on.

I was always quite an active person. As a family, we'd think nothing of hiking ten miles or more. I walked to school and back every day. We went swimming a couple of times a week. I played sports at school a couple of times a week, despite having asthma which could make it quite tortuous.

No matter, by the time I left home I weighed more than 200 pounds, though some of that was muscle.

I carried on eating two meals a day in adulthood, mostly low fat, high carb. I ate a lot of bread, pasta and tomatos, that kind of thing. Additionally, I discovered junk food and alcohol, which definitely didn't help. I'll also hold my hand up to being a comfort eater. So despite working outdoors in all weathers for most of my adult life, I'm well on my way to 300 pounds. With low carbing (stone age diet), I've stabilised and am slowly starting to lose weight.

I suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome and insulin resistance, and have also discovered I have gluten intolerance and casein intolerance. Caused by my obesity or a comlicating factor, who knows.

I'm just glad I finally found a solution. I'm the only overweight member of my family.