TED Talks : Enough With The Fear Of Being Fat

I am old enough to remember that we are fat as hell now. But that was not the way we all were 40 years ago. We are fat now because we sit on our asses and over eat. It has never been that easy to lose fat once we become fat. But it is very easy to never let yourself get fat

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It takes a bigger man that me to do it. Working out make ya bigger, but in her case you need an extra long penis just to reach. I wouldn’t do it if I could, but I am impressed by any man who can

I’ll disagree with you on that. When I was a teenager I was an NZ size 10 (which is US 6). Yet my BMI was classed as overweight - there was no way I was overweight.
The real problem with BMI is that people who are in the acceptable weight range can actually be extremely unhealthy - skinny fat, yet because they have a healthy bmi and look right - they think they are healthy - yet they can be anything but.

I’ll even go a little further. As I said my BMI is still in the obese range. Just over a year ago I was able to start a fitness programme through my local Hospital. The trainers took all my stats at the beginning and end of the programme. All my stats (heart rate - resting and working; body fat percentage; hip/waist ratio etc) improved. For the first time in goodness knows how long (well over 10 years) I actually lost cms. Yet my weight increased so my BMI went up. I swapped fat with muscle. If I was going by weight and BMI - I would have been completely depressed.

To be healthy you need to eat right and exercise. If you are overweight and sedentary - you need to change. That is the problem with the diet industry - they just focus on food - they forget the exercise, and for many people - that is where they are going wrong.

BMI is a scale based on averages and it is right 80% to 90% of the time. You must be in the top 10% in muscle mass. Why your BMI was freaking you out or anyone else for that matter makes no sense. The eyes dont lie. If you look good naked you are not fat. BMI is a tool, but if you let a number make you think your eyes are lying to you. The problem is not with BMI. But the truth is most of us Americans are fat pigs. The problem is sweet drinks and cheese burgers.

People are so fat these days that I’m told I’m built well. Maybe in comparison to most . But I am 25% body fat. Its from too many cheezerbergers and pizza. No reason for me to lie. BMI does not treat me well at all. Its says obese. No im just fat, but I am not average. The average man does not squat, dead lift or beach press. They make a scale for folks like us and it will be lying to 80% or better

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It is not some industry or disciplines responsibility to educate people on what they need in this regard.

Diet plans are diet plans. Exercise plans are exercise plans. If a person doesn’t know that it is up to them to become informed. It is not up to an entire industry to find and educate people on what they lack.

If I wear high heels to hike through the woods do I get to blame the shoe industry for not informing me to wear hiking boots?

I didn’t bother watching the video you posted. But, I have seen other fat asses talking about “fat shaming” and that “fat is beautiful”. Well here is a dose of reality for them. Fat people really look bad and that’s not even the half of it. People who are morbidly obese like the woman in the video usually suffer from a myriad of really nasty stuff such as, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke and heart disease. In fact the latest research shows that people who are overweight even suffer from a higher cancer rate. The article that I read equated being morbidly obese with being a heavy smoker…it’s that dangerous. So, she can go on sticking her middle finger up at the world and thinking that it’s perfectly fine to be overweight but eventually life will stick its middle finger in her face in the form of the many diseases above. And there is no amount of political correctness that can save her or her kind.

She makes me sick.

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Very well said truer words were never spoken.

The diet industry is not there to educate people. The diet industry is there to take money off people. The problem is that most people just don’t know where to get the right information and they are often so desperate to lose weight - they believe what is being marketed.

However, the govt departments and organisations which are supposed to be providing accurate information aren’t. They are still spouting information that is so out of date and outright wrong. I see why people just don’t know where to turn. I see this with my friends. However, I am not good with tact so trying to tactfully give them the right information is difficult.

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Yes it is a tool - but of all the tools out there - it is probably the worst tool to use. There are others that are far better.

All I know is at my height (5’6") BMI says I should be under 150 lbs to be of the proper weight. Guess I’d rather be “obese” than weigh the same as a 10th grader.

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I can see why you’ve had problems with the whole diet/fitness thing, but I don’t see how a professionally written diet plan or exerdise plan is not fair exchange.

I also still don’t see where personal responsibility comes in for you. Still everybodys fault except the person with the problem.

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Honestly? If they’re turned off by your bluntness/lack of tact, they probably just don’t want it hard enough. Sometimes people just needs to get smacked in the face hard with a shitload of truth. You are trying to help them and you literally have nothing to gain. Maybe this is going to an extreme but if this happened to my friends, I would get better friends. That being said, if someone is overweight/unhealthy/etc and chooses to be that way and admits it. That’s perfectly fine by me.

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First sentence - I don’t quite understand what you are saying. From my experience I have seen so called ‘professionals’ give bad diet and/or exercise plans.
I am 42 years old. I have been to a number of gyms over the years and have been given a variety of different programs. Only twice have I been given a squat as an exercise. (I actually had to do a modified squat as I couldn’t do one without injuring myself). The two gyms that gave me good programs - one was a physio, the other a specialist gym I was referred to by the hospital. The others were all generic gyms who gave me isolation exercises and moved me from one machine to another. Surprise surprise - I saw no results.

Second sentence I get where you are coming from. I am not removing personal responsibility from the equation. People need to take responsibility for their choices in life. If you are obese, have diabetes and other serious health conditions and you choose to chow down on McDs every week - don’t come crying to me about your health.
However, if you are eating a healthy diet, working out hard and seeing no result - I can understand why people despair - I’ve been there.
It makes me want to scream, when I see people falling for a marketed fad or pseudo-science - but there is so much out there and nowadays it is hard to tell if a person is actually a professional who knows what they are talking about or a pseudo-professional who spouts what people think they want to hear.

Once you have the knowledge it is easier to make progress. It is getting the knowledge that is the hard part.

What level of professional? There are professional dietitians on this site. Not gonna name names, as that is their choice, but I know damn well that the program you get from them is going to be light years ahead of Jake Blowhard 6 pack in 6 weeks for everybody. Even some Jake Blowhard plans are pretty good too. My wife is in bad shape. She likes fitness junk. She bought a plan last year from a dietary So and So and had me look it over before paying for it (trial period thing). It was actually rock solid. The guy runs a specific concept to its ragged ends, but his plans and recommendations for general health were virtually incontrovertible.

It wasn’t cheap though. It was, however, a fair exchange between two entities. He’s selling it. She bought it. No coercion or duplicity.

As for fitness plans- I’m not a professional trainer, and I do not run a gym. If I did though, and had any professional standards to uphold or liability to consider, I would not recommend that somebody who is in very bad condition do weighted squats to depth. As a personal choice and on their own, someone can do what ever they want. Professionals have a lot more to consider though, especially in a facility full of machines that can bring someone to a better point of health much more safely and in line with general professional guidelines. Full squats to depth are not the be all but could be the end all with the wrong person.

Heck, when I took up olympic lifting I was 5’9",160 lbs, with a high 3’s squat, 400+ dead lift and about 10% bf. (measured with calipers, by a pro). I was not allowed to even touch a bar with weight until I demonstrated (with a wooden stick) the speed and form that the coach expected from people he trained. Why? Because I was tight and slow, and the snatch and c&j need to be done correctly, or a person could easily get permanently injured.

Suffice to say, I don’t think that whether or not a trainer or coach has someone do squats is nearly as good a measuring tool of their skill as you do. In fact, I would say that a trainer sucks if he risks the health of someone by instructing them to do something that could easily cause them harm.

I pretty much agree on the knowledge part. That is gotten through sweat equity.

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Hey - I agree with this.
For the record both gyms that gave me squats gave me unweighted squats that were modified. The gym that I get my programmes from now (I train at home) - my trainer had me go through all the exercises weight free to make sure I had the form and movement down correctly. She also told me exactly which muscles I was using (or should be using) and where I should be feeling it.
The other gyms - gave me none of this sort of information, which means that if I was doing the exercise wrong - I wouldn’t know. However, to be fair the industry is now regulated far more than it was (I’m in NZ).

Interestingly, for me free weights are actually safer for me than many machines. When I first went there I was given a number of exercises using bands and the cable machines. I could not do those exercises because the exercises hurt me in areas I was not supposed to be targeting.

@lbv [quote=“lbv, post:43, topic:223777”]
The real problem with BMI is that people who are in the acceptable weight range can actually be extremely unhealthy - skinny fat, yet because they have a healthy bmi and look right - they think they are healthy - yet they can be anything but.
[/quote]

I don’t mean to be a wiseass, but this is why an RD or MD does not go by BMI alone when assessing one’s health. I don’t only look at a BMI and simply declare, “This person is healthy/unhealthy.”

There are many people with normal BMI’s who are unhealthy; I’ve encountered thousands of them! It’s just that those who do have abnormal BMI’s, in the majority of their cases, they are obese or underweight! And the BMI can actually show the severity of the underweight or obesity. It’s not a be-all-end-all tool but it shows something.

In that particular case, the BMI is useless and shouldn’t be considered further.

Hence why a healthcare practitioner or someone assessing oneself should not go by weight and BMI alone.

Nothing you say is wrong and I say congratulations for your goals achieved. All I am saying is that BMI can indicate something in some cases.

All anyone has to do is undress and look in the mirror. See that roll hanging over your pubic hair? Well…it shouldn’t be there.

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I’d go even farther and say that it even holds for most natty lifters. There is a lot of denial around the “it doesn’t take muscle into effect” thing. If you are natty and in the obese range you are on the fat side or you are one of the best in the world. Yes, the muscle moves you up the scale, but not nearly as much as many even serious lifters fool themselves into believing.

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I donno man. At 5’9" 169 lbs is overweight and 203 is obese per the BMI chart. Ya, you’re likely chubby at 203, but fat… I guess it depends on what you consider fat.

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Exactly this. But then again. I’d like to think most of us, or at least I am, are striving towards being considered obese on the BMI chart whilst being lean/reasonable amount of bodyfat.


Oh and I’m since we’re using 5’9" as the example…

includes pic of a 5’9" man at 190lbs and slightly less lean at 200lbs-ish

5’9" at 196lbs


thanks to @T3hPwnisher for being our example body type on showcase and it wouldn’t hurt if you gave your input on the topic