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I’m 370 lbs and today I had a doctor tell me that people who are skinnier than me are all like that because they work out and eat right. Can I get a roll call for the people who are less than 370 lbs and eat like shit or don’t work out? Because I’m pretty sure you exist.

Also, one time I had a doctor ask me “are you sure?” 4 times after I said I didn’t have any breathing problems. Like nah I’m just big.

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[-] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 51 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

When I was about the same weight as OP (a little heavier actually) people would say this to me, that they have great metabolism and pig out all the time but just never get fat, and when I would ask them to elaborate on what they specifically ate, it was universally a fraction of what I was eating. One guy described a day where he went totally nuts and ate a bunch of food, and after listing all the food he ate on that day I was like, "Aight cool now eat that same amount every single day for a decade and you'll get on my level."

Anyway I guess my point is that it was very demoralizing for me when I was trying to lose weight to hear people brag about their souped up metabolism, and conversely very encouraging when literally all of them were exposed as over-blowing their actual calorie consumption once I started asking them for details.

*my other point being, variable metabolisms aside, not a human on this earth is eating 3800+ calories a day with little/no exercise and staying fit

[-] JustSo@hexbear.net 27 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Yeah the body learns, like for examples stomachs have elasticity so (as I understand it, crudely) the sensation of fullness is something that will incrementally change if you overeat to the point of really stretching your stomach.

I learned this from an ex who liked to eat them fancy 7-12 course meals at restaurants and taught me the importance of pre-gaming so our stomachs wouldn't shrink over the course of a day waiting to eat big for two+ hours straight. So it's in the "folk knowledge at best" category of what I know, but I assume those gastric band things work the same way in reverse etc.

The impression I get with big people who are "just big" and who don't want to be, that it's a multifaceted issue they have to address, and often a fairly unique-to-them combination of factors.

Like, I remember listening to how Kevin Smith would talk about food and eating before his heart attack and his philosophy of, essentially, hedonism-first life fulfillment. I could never have imagined he would lose all that weight. Even after the heart attack and his tearful realisation that he wasn't gonna live to see his daughter grow up and go through all the interesting phases of life (ie the moment that genuinely in retrospect did change and likely extended his life by decades) even after that I was like, nah he's going to try, but there's no way a man like him can drop the weight and keep it off and start a whole new health oriented lifestyle this late in life. I just didn't think he had the psychological discipline to make such drastic changes to both his philosophy on life AND his tolerance for discomfort etc.

Now I feel slightly ashamed that he was able to fix his shit in what now looks like the blink of an eye and here I am still with all the same bad habits and poor discipline I've always had. I know there's (apparently) a lot to hate on Smith for but I genuinely admire the way he just started holding himself accountable and streaming his early walks up the hills and complaining like a baby the whole time. Look at him now. It's hard not to be impressed.

I'm skinny tho, so nobody gives me a hard time about my shitty self destructive lifestyle (and useless philosophy lol.)

None of this is commentary on OP. I don't know a damn thing about them except their doctor sucks and that they're heavy.

[-] President_Obama@hexbear.net 14 points 5 days ago

This was well written, it was pleasent to read. Idk, like how something can roll of the tongue, it was like that but with reading. Disclaimer: am not a native speaker of English

[-] take_five_seconds@hexbear.net 6 points 5 days ago

Now I feel slightly ashamed that he was able to fix his shit in what now looks like the blink of an eye and here I am still with all the same bad habits and poor discipline I've always had.

he (probably) has more money than you; not worried about rent or car payments or work or whatever, hire a personal trainer and a nutritionist, get someone to buy your healthy groceries. i can't comment on how he actually did do it but if i was rich or at least had dough that's how i would.

[-] Tomboymoder@hexbear.net 10 points 5 days ago

I do think it is true to an extent, my sister had a pretty high metabolism and would never gain despite what she ate.
She was decently active though which also increases your metabolism...either way I do think there is a difference it makes, but like you said I don't think it's a massive difference where someone on a Super Size Me diet would remain bone thin (or the inverse someone on a moderate diet gaining a crazy amount of weight.

I was posting something in a similar vein on the trans mega actually , where you hear about how much someone eats and it's more than you despite them being skinner because of their height and metabolism.

[-] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago

I think a lot of this is death by a thousand cuts type stuff that's kind of impossible to accurately scope out unless you were scientifically observed 24/7 for a while without your knowledge so as to not change your behaviour, which is obviously horribly unethical.

I don't care for the exact numbers too much for this example, those vary depending on source and study but just as an example if you take identical people with identical lifetstyles and diets you can easily get quite wild numbers of different caloric rates.

  • Fidgeting burns 350 calories a day
  • one person likes a beer (0,33L / 130 Calories) after dinner, one person likes a chocolate bar (250 Calories)
  • One Person smokes (200 Calories per day) with the associated going outdoors (let's just say further 100 calories) vs. just not doing that

These two otherwise exactly identical people doing the exact same thing every day eating the exact same things, portion sizes etc. except for those 3 things mentioned above would lead you to a 770 Calories difference in calories needed a day. And there's so many variables here. A splash of oil is easily 200 calories apart depending on who's splashing, there's another 100 calories a day if we assume both of our theoretical people are avid home cooks who cook for themselves every second day and never throw anything out.

[-] Tomboymoder@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago
[-] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 3 points 5 days ago

Should've put a minus there to make it clearer, smoking cigarettes burns about 200kcal a day because it raises your heartrate. The other 100 is from the assumption you don't smoke inside and so include more walks outside for it over the course of a day.

[-] Tomboymoder@hexbear.net 1 points 5 days ago

Ah, that makes more sense

[-] NotLuigi@hexbear.net 9 points 5 days ago

I’ve had that experience and I’ve also known people who out eat me by a long shot and are still pretty skinny. I think people are just bad at estimating others’ relationships with food and weight in general. People are always so surprised when I tell them how much I weigh.

[-] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago

I had two friends for a time that had really inefficient metabolisms, one of them had a condition where his intestines would simply only absorb a third of what went in, and no one knew what was going on with the other guy but he would eat over 10k calories a day.

this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2024
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