Fellow CC members: You will love this! Losing weight is impossible?

This might be interesting to you.

Today I was browsing on YouTube (bad habit), and I came across Joy Nash's Fat Rant. Even though I'm all about getting healthy, I still love her and this video. The only problem I have with it is that she implies that weight loss is futile and attempts always fail.

So I left a comment saying what I like about the video and then just voiced my opinion that making healthy changes is a great thing and people shouldn't get discouraged. Recently someone replied to me with this:

"Maybe the reason she implies that losing weight is futile...is because it IS futile. Fact: 98 percent of diets fail. No matter how much weight you lose, in the end you will ALWAYS gain it back. Your body is a product of nature, and as we all know...when nature is tampered with, it disrupts the natural order of things, and has catastrophic consequences and nature will attempt to correct itself accordingly. Man polluts earth...global warming results. Fat person attempts to diet...anorexia."

I find this both ridiculous and alarming. Share your thoughts, because apparently there are people who actually believe this - you might meet one some day =)

That's hilarious. Because trans-fats, McDonalds, and deep-dish pizza AREN'T tampering with nature? And that's just in the eating realm. Applying that logic more widely, we shouldn't have any buildings, electricity, medicine, cars . . . because they're disrupting the natural order of things!

Fact: 98 percent of diets fail because people are uninformed. Fact: whoever posted this is an idiot. 

98% of DIETS fail because people do them untill they lose weight, then go back to what they were doing before that made them gain weight in the first place! People need lifestyle and habit changes, not attempts to fix something followed by a quick return to what caused the problem in the first place.

all i can say is thats bull**** :)  i agree with cosmographer :) :

Fact: 98 percent of diets fail because people are uninformed. Fact: whoever posted that is an idiot. 

It doesn't really bother me if people are okay with being fat. That's their choice. But they should accept that it is their behavior that got them there and is keeping them there. As an example, a lot of people I know in real life regularly undermine the hard work it took me to lose weight, complaining that they can't lose weight like I did no matter how hard they try, while they're still guzzling sodas and have no idea what eating healthy even means.

cosmography, that's precisely what I was thinking - if we followed that logic, then people wouldn't be able to gain all the weight in the first place.

ibez, I agree with you, as long as it's not life threatening and the person is genuinely fine with the way they look, then I don't care at all. I guess that's why I love her video. I'm not personally happy with my weight, so that's why I'm here. Anyway, it's great that you can eat healthily despite the people who don't understand.

Sadly, perhaps we should be more worried about a stupidity epidemic than an obesity one.

Original Post by ibez:

It doesn't really bother me if people are okay with being fat. That's their choice. But they should accept that it is their behavior that got them there and is keeping them there. As an example, a lot of people I know in real life regularly undermine the hard work it took me to lose weight, complaining that they can't lose weight like I did no matter how hard they try, while they're still guzzling sodas and have no idea what eating healthy even means.

this this this.

Also:

There's a whole blog about pro-fat (I don't know what the politcally correct term is) which I was looking over because it was being ridiculed on another site.  The author seems bipolar, calls anyone who is slim "anorexic" and other derogatory terms, and says that all diets are bound to fail due to a study that she cites which, if you actually go read it, proved that about 1/2 to "as many as" 2/3rds of dieters will regain the weight within 5 years.  She goes so far as to call anyone who keeps weight off "a freak of nature."

But apparently to join the community you simply have to be "delightful" and "witty."  She might be witty, but it's a wit that deals solely with words and not proof or science, and she certainly wasn't being delightful in the entries I read.

How do these people maintain a following!?

Original Post by tealparadise:

 But apparently to join the community you simply have to be "delightful" and "witty." 

That is absolutely hysterical! Delightful and witty, oh, that makes me laugh. Like I said, people who are truly overweight are just people to me - I don't care (hello, I wouldn't be here if I was peach perfect), BUT I don't like it when a whole groups rag on other groups (skinny people against the fat, fat people against the skinny). It's all retarted in my book.

But I find it horrible that people would say that losing weight is useless and abnormal. If you are truly unhealthy and unhappy, it hurts everyone - you, your friends, family...

Original Post by kyko:

98% of DIETS fail because people do them untill they lose weight, then go back to what they were doing before that made them gain weight in the first place! People need lifestyle and habit changes, not attempts to fix something followed by a quick return to what caused the problem in the first place.

 Exactly! Food is not going to force you to eat to much of it because of your genetics. It's mind over matter. You decide how much food you eat not your body.

Original Post by ibez:

It doesn't really bother me if people are okay with being fat. That's their choice. But they should accept that it is their behavior that got them there and is keeping them there. As an example, a lot of people I know in real life regularly undermine the hard work it took me to lose weight, complaining that they can't lose weight like I did no matter how hard they try, while they're still guzzling sodas and have no idea what eating healthy even means.

Hmm. Well, on the one hand I'm not going to get personally offended by every overweight person who walks down the street (hell, I'd spend a lot of my life being pissed off). On the other hand, someone else being overweight is costing me money, because my taxes are being spent on healthcare rather than other things. I don't mind my taxes going to healthcare if it's for unavoidable illnesses. But obesity is, for the great majority of people, totally preventable and treatable with a change in lifestyle.

Edit: In New Zealand we have a free healthcare system. It's generally a good thing, but it does mean paying for other people's lousy lifestyles (smokers, you know who you are!)

Original Post by nodame:

Man polluts earth...global warming results. Fat person attempts to diet...anorexia."

lol, its not the truth but it is all too often the case, hell the line above is the story of my current predicament.

 Any goal can be achieved with proper balance, but there are just so many factors of that balance, whether we're talking nature or our own bodies, that we often get lost and overdo or under-do....  resulting in "global warming", obesity or anorexia...

Original Post by merylwhite1:

Original Post by ibez:

It doesn't really bother me if people are okay with being fat. That's their choice. But they should accept that it is their behavior that got them there and is keeping them there. As an example, a lot of people I know in real life regularly undermine the hard work it took me to lose weight, complaining that they can't lose weight like I did no matter how hard they try, while they're still guzzling sodas and have no idea what eating healthy even means.

Hmm. Well, on the one hand I'm not going to get personally offended by every overweight person who walks down the street (hell, I'd spend a lot of my life being pissed off). On the other hand, someone else being overweight is costing me money, because my taxes are being spent on healthcare rather than other things. I don't mind my taxes going to healthcare if it's for unavoidable illnesses. But obesity is, for the great majority of people, totally preventable and treatable with a change in lifestyle.

Edit: In New Zealand we have a free healthcare system. It's generally a good thing, but it does mean paying for other people's lousy lifestyles (smokers, you know who you are!)

While you do have a point, I think that I've just learned to accept that it is the nature of people to be mediocre at many things. Even if they are costing people who take proper care of their health extra tax dollars, getting annoyed at each person who does it is pointless, it won't change their behavior anyway.  There's a lot of things we have to pay for via taxes that we don't support (For example, disability checks for people with diseases that are not actually debilitating); it's just the society we live in.

the bottom line:

we are the ones who open our mouth and put the food in..

.nowdays to many people including their kids are doing fast foods, pop, snacks and ignoring the fact good health starts when your young.  Most parents are not good roll models.

Sugar, salt addictions are common...I was a sugar addict...4 teaspoons in the coffee, chocolate feasts @ Christmas, Easter, Halloween and I loved junk foods.  Pizza, BBQ red meat...I truly enjoyed this.  But no one put a gun to my head and said eat!!  It was my choice.

However, in January 2009 at 202lbs, with my blood pressure and pulse bordering on a massive heart attack...I decided then and there to stop the madness.  I am now under 179 and will be under 172 by May 15th...but then I will not gain it back.  I will police my calories, my BP, my weigh scales and eat a balanced diet...I do it for not only me but for the people who will miss me should I die to soon.  My family, kids, future Grand kids and close friends.

I have consider who I hurt by being over weight...it is not only me!! 

That is my choice....

I believe the Youtube poster when they say that 98% of all diets fail, if by diets they are referring to DIETS, such as the Liquid diet, the Master Cleanse diet, the Three Day diet, or any other sort of diet that only allows you a grapefruit for breakfast and a salad for dinner. These diets are impossible to maintain long term, and can really destroy your metabolism, and in some cases your health. 

If they were, however, referring to a slight CHANGE in diet, i.e. the replacement of cookies with fruit, KFC with a baked chicken breast, Coke with Diet Coke, then I would say that they are... not making any sense. I agree with all posters above: we can all make small, simple changes, count calories and build awareness about what we eat, and lose weight and keep it off.

When did the word diet become about not eating? I thought the word "diet" was what you were eating...

I have not read the blog, but I’m assuming that when they refer to 98% of diets failing, they’re referring to specific fad diets with funny names like “The Super Pro Ab Zone Blaster Diet – with new legal formula” lol

We all know the type, and we’ve all probably tried similar types at one point or another.  As we know, many of those diets do the first part, which makes you lose the weight, but they don’t teach you anything about proper nutrition.  So of course people finish the fad diet, reach their goal weight, then rapidly put the weight back on. 

Original Post by nodame:

This might be interesting to you.

Today I was browsing on YouTube (bad habit), and I came across Joy Nash's Fat Rant. Even though I'm all about getting healthy, I still love her and this video. The only problem I have with it is that she implies that weight loss is futile and attempts always fail.

So I left a comment saying what I like about the video and then just voiced my opinion that making healthy changes is a great thing and people shouldn't get discouraged. Recently someone replied to me with this:

"Maybe the reason she implies that losing weight is futile...is because it IS futile. Fact: 98 percent of diets fail. No matter how much weight you lose, in the end you will ALWAYS gain it back. Your body is a product of nature, and as we all know...when nature is tampered with, it disrupts the natural order of things, and has catastrophic consequences and nature will attempt to correct itself accordingly. Man polluts earth...global warming results. Fat person attempts to diet...anorexia."

I find this both ridiculous and alarming. Share your thoughts, because apparently there are people who actually believe this - you might meet one some day =)

Joy Nash is clearly a douchebag.

mook

And I must add - there are ALOT of people who really believe that too, or at least use it as an excuse to not change. E.G., my sister. She subscribes to all that line of thought, and constantly puts down and discourages me and my mom, saying that we''re going to be fat anyways. We keep telling her "Well it's been 4 years, and it's not going bad thus far..."

She reads things like "The Obesity Myth" and "Fat!SO?", and.....wow it's just getting old.

Original Post by littlesimongeorge:

I have not read the blog, but I’m assuming that when they refer to 98% of diets failing, they’re referring to specific fad diets with funny names like “The Super Pro Ab Zone Blaster Diet – with new legal formula” lol

 

We all know the type, and we’ve all probably tried similar types at one point or another.  As we know, many of those diets do the first part, which makes you lose the weight, but they don’t teach you anything about proper nutrition.  So of course people finish the fad diet, reach their goal weight, then rapidly put the weight back on. 

 Well, this person was telling me later that they literally don't think people can lose weight and keep it off if it's against their "nature". They actually said that if a person eats a lot of bad food and has a craving, it's useless to try and deny it.

Maybe the study itself (though I don't there was one) is referring to fad diets, in which case I heartily agree.

Oh, and mook, I actually think Joy Nash is a beautiful, confident woman. Though I personally would not be happy at her weight, she clearly is. But what I like about her is that she's intelligent, and thinks through her arguments with (mostly) careful logic.

 I went and found Joy Nash's fat rant and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Granted, she does say that successful dieters are practically freaks of nature... and that I definitely disagree with. However, most of her rant is about how clothes shops don't stock her size, people discriminate based on size, and how fat people also put themselves down. There's a lot of positive body image messages in there, and I thought she had some good points. I'm a healthy weight but I wish I had her body confidence. She's also pretty funny!

The person who commented on Youtube and said you have to be either fat or anorexic is just plain kidding themselves. Have they not seen all the healthy weight people out and about? I just think that's the most bizarre case of selective vision I've heard of in a long time.

I think that's soo funny. People who are disciplined lose weight all the time. Lazy peoplle who sit on you tube all the time telling people that they are doomed by nature (and not mcdonalds) to be fat... not so much.