I do think Levi worded his question poorly, which may or may not be a result of his native language not being English. This information - how various people came to the weights they are currently at - is also available in a number of threads with pretty evident titles, so he could also have looked there first.

There is, however, an underlying assumption in his post that I find amusing for the stereotype on which it relies. He posted in triple digits, therefore assuming that the people he was talking to had at least 100 lbs to lose. He then tags the audience for his question as "200+ for a female". The presupposition here is that a 'healthy' female weighs about 100 lbs. And to add further interest, he seems to think that if you're male, you can weigh about 100 lbs more before he considers you 'obese'.

*Friday does the diva snap*

Honey, I got one thing to say to that: My LBM alone is 128 lbs. Put that in your heroin chic and smoke it.

What vital organs would you like me to give up to suit your feminine ideal? My liver? How about my brain?

Cheers,

Friday

P.S. Sometimes enlightenment comes through gentle and patient education. Sometimes enlightenment comes through the sudden whack of the shinai. I'm much more in the shinai mood today.

Question for you Levi... why have you joined this web site? Are you or have you been obese? I am curious, as to how you became overweight?

If the picture you attached is yours, you have a nice body...and should take care of it.

We are all trying to take care of ourselves, regardless of where we came from and what got us to this place.

I know how I got here, and I am grateful that I have found such supportive and loving people..

I hope you find what you are looking for.

we're all supposed to be blue-eyed blondes as well? I guess I'm offended because no one would walk up to anyone on the street and ask this question. Well, no one that has any semblance of manners, so why is it okay to ask this question here? Because there's no face-to-face contact? I'm sure that your question could've been researched without asking such a loaded, personal question.

~alice:
i joinéd this board because i am low-carbing for nearly two years now and i am searching for an appropriate way to switch from a ckd to an easier to follow regimen like zone or isocaloric - this is why i entered this board.

thank you for your cheer-up on my body - do NOT think everybody admires you for looking lean and fit - there are always a lot of jealous people or those who say it is all up to your bodybuilding-drugs-use (this point normally comes from guys with a cigarette in one and a bottle of beer in the other hand).

apart from that the problems stay the same even when you are lean - you still MUST be careful with exercising and dieting, resting, sleeping, not overtraining etc.

~fridayeyes:

you are right with your point on english not being my first language; although i think i know the gist of english grammar and vocabulary that does NOT automatically imply that i choose the right way to say what i want without offending people from another country who may have other rules of politeness than my own, for example not being too straight with your words.

BTW, i took 200 lbs for a woman and 300 lbs for men cause i think the average male is taller and more muscular than the average female.

for sure, if you are a female with a height of 5`10`` or so then 200 lbs do absolutly not mean you are overly obese.

i simply posted this question in the tripledigits club because i thought i could meet a lot of persons who can give me an answer to my question there and to be honest i didnt think a lot about 200 / 300 lbs - i took them because they are round numbers (could as well be 100 / 150 kg).

~all others:

thank you very much for your honest answers, they are very well appreciated, i now can partly understand the problem, esp. the combination of insulin-problems and wrong nutritional education in childhood makes perfect sense to me.

But still obese, huh? I doubt most would agree with that....

Hi, Levi,

Having dispensed with the shinai, I can now proffer the other mode of enlightenment.

Your post violated two basic tenets of politeness: familiarity and tact.

Familiarity is the idea that the better you know someone, the more personal the questions you may ask without offending.

Tact is the ability to know what is likely to be offensive or provocative and to choose your words so as to present the most benign interpretation.

When familiarity is low, tact must be high or offense is given.

Think for a moment about why you capitalized the word SO in the title of your post. Did you have suspicions that it might offend? If so, why did you do it anyway, and are you really surprised at the reactions you got?

A better title might have been: What do you think is behind your weight problem? Or, to make the question even less individually personal: Why do people gain weight?

Another general rule of politeness: Assuming you do care about having given offense, it is considered 'gentlemanly' to apologize, even if the offense was unintended or accidental. *wink*

Cheers,

Friday

Hi Levi,
I'm taking a weight management course right now and they say the American culture is fattening. We drive everywhere, we eat fast food, and we watch a lot of tv.

At my church they have donuts, chocolate and cookies every Sunday. At my work they supply food for us. There are big candy bowls by the copier. Bowls of tortilla chips and m&ms sitting around. Our lunchroom has almost every candy bar, chip, cracker and soda available. We usually have pizza, mexican food, American Chinese and sandwiches. Human resources did a study and the junkfood was found to be the #1 perk that kept people at a company. We joke that you gain 10lbs as soon as you join the company.

Since I've been lowcarbing I've discovered that there are many other choices but I grew up loving junkfood and fast food and probably would never have changed if I hadn't started gaining weight.


Nancy

YOU GO GIRL!!!!

You can count me in the beatings!!! I am 5ft 11 and at 200lbs I wear a size 14 and think I look DAMN GOOD!!! No I will never be stick skinny but I have nuscle and I love my body STRONG AND HEALTHY!!!!!

Sonja

How did I get up to (pre- Atkins) 228 lbs ?

I feel very strongly about this, because other people are at this minute going through it, and I would like to prevent it happening to them.

High - carbohydrate diets, low fat diets, all promoted by my doctors.And 1,500 calories a day( supervised by GP) while I was pregnant left me with a gain of 3 stone or so.

A glucose tolerance test ... showing what I know now to be reactive hypoglycaemia.... and my doctor scratching his head, saying "well, its highly abnormal. But its not actually diabetes so thats ok"

yes thats the honest truth as to why I got fat. I didnt cheat on my high carb diet, I have terrific willpower. But I was despairing as to why I felt so low., and how I slowly gained.

Now I want to lose fat and change the mind - set of UK doctors.

Levi,
I think the people on this forum have been incredibly kind and helpful to you even tho you have phrased your question in an unkind way. As fridayeyes has stated very nicely, you could have said it much more tactfully. Assuming you have good intentions in asking your question, plenty of folks have answered very succinctly. If you were "obese" yourself, then it would not have been offensive. Then it would be one person with similiar experiences asking others what their experiences have been. But since you have never really had this type of weight problem, it comes off as extremely insensitive. Or then again, it could just be HOW you phrased it. Victoria

hi,

I'm not obese, i actually have quite a bit of muscle for my size. nevertheless, my weight gain was caused by 2 years of anorexia, using Hydroxycut and exercising 2 hours almost every day. I was going to university full time and working on my feet 8 hours a day. I exhausted my adrenals which in turn caused my hypothyroidism. I would do cardio 5 days a week and play soccer 2 days a week(competitive) and still gain weight. My brother who is a competitive natural bodybuilder even helped me with my diet and exercise plan but nothing worked. Went to the doctor and he told me the weight gain was muscle and I knew otherwise. Had my thyroid checked and it was off then a year later went to a doctor who has now prescribed the Diane pill for PCOS symptoms.
My body went into starvation mode and my metabolism got screwed. I was planning on doing a fitness competition within the next few years but that will have to wait another year or two til I'm back to normal, hopefully. ANyways, that's how i gained weight.

Danyele

I think this is a very complex issue and there are really no simple answers to why we are seeing the kinds of body size changes here in North America. I am a cultural anthropologist so I try to look at things cross-culturally and holistically. There is the "thrifty gene" theory. Some humans may be more biologically programmed to store energy reserves (fat) and for most of our hominid history this has been a good thing. It was likely in our genes but didn't show up until we had the right social context--abundance of fast energy foods, more and more automation, different reproductive patterns, etc. North Americans in particular have cultural notions of beauty that are absolutely unobtainable for most people. This creates feelings of inadequancy and self-doubt--perfect breeding grounds for psychological pain which may lead to unhealthy eating habits. North Americans are just incredible consumers in every way--cars, food, fashion, automation. There are major differences in daily life between Europe and the US and I think we are seeing this in the comparative numbers of large people.

If you click on the Profile Icon below Levi's posts, it says in the biobgraphy slot that he once weighed 251 pounds at his highest. So we could ask how he got that fat. It must be that, at that weight, he decided to try to do something about it - just like all of us here.

I note also that he only has 5% body fat. Seems to me that is somewhat low for healthy functioning. But his object seems to be muscle building and body sculpting, so health may not matter at the present. I wonder what will happen in later years?

I agree that the original post was very rude for a new member to make. He may be interested in ketogenic diets but it was unkind and projected scorn for people over those weights rather than honest interest.

JMHO

Levi,

I have always been extremely large boned, at the age of 16 and wearing an American Junior size 9/10 and at the height of 5'8.5", I was still larger then most people in school but very slim at 176 lbs (to most that is heavy, but I could not be skinnier because of my bones). When I was 25 I snapped my achilles tendon in volleyball and slowed down very much. Then at the age of 28 was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension (a lung disease) I could not walk up a flight of stairs without collapsing. So, the charts call me obese at 217 lbs, however, I do not feel I look obese, however, I have one hell of a time trying to get my weight off, since I cannot exercise like most people. When I was young, I ran miles and miles and lifted many weights to be at 176 and slim. So, that is why on the charts I am "obese", however, I believe I am over weight, yet not obese.

I am not offended by your question. I wish more people who have never been overweight or obese, could be in our shoes and know what it feels like.

Cindy

Levi...

I'm not sure that your assessment of the obesity rates between the US and Germany are terribly accurate. Check this link for the actual statistics: http://www.iuns.org/features/obesity/obesity.htm
If you look closely at the obesity rates of the US compared to those in Germany, you should notice that they are actually quite close numbers-wise. You should also note that obesity rates are climbing at alarming rates in both the US and in Europe in general.
FYI...the US doesn't hold the record for the highest percentage of overweight individuals...Urban Samoa has that dubious honor with 75% of it's population at obese weights.

As for your question as to how people get 100+ pounds over their healthy weights (I won't say "ideal" because healthy weights are as individual as people are), I think will find as many different answers as there are people in that classification. Many of them got there by following what they believed was good advice from their doctors: eat low fat, high carb. Some got to those alarming weights by taking prescription drugs for other medical problems which case weight gain as a side-effect. Still others arrived in the land of obesity through overeating and underexercising for a host of reasons, both physical and emotional; the more overweight you get, the less active you tend to be, so it becomes a vicious cycle. Many others will tell you that they honestly don't know (and they really don't) and that everything that they have tried has only resulted in their gaining still more weight.

Most people who are overweight aren't that way because they WANT to be, but rather because they can't find any solution that works and if you don't think people are looking for a solution, take a hard look at all the diets and diet products on the market. They wouldn't be there if people weren't buying them and people wouldn't be buying them if they weren't trying to lose weight.

It's time that we stopped thinking of and treating those who are overweight as if they have some sort of moral shortcoming and that their obesity is somehow all their fault and theirs alone and started realizing that at the heart of it is often a medical condition that has long gone unrecognized and treated poorly, if at all. The overweight are not morally deficient or gluttons; most of them have a disease called insulin resistance. Well-meaning doctors have told the overweight for decades "eat less and you'll lose weight" or "cut back on the fat and you'll lose weight" and then blamed the poor patient who faithfully followed that advice for getting fatter, made them feel it was "their fault" for not "being serious about losing weight" and sent them home to hang their heads in shame and frustration when it should have been the doctor hanging his (or her) head in shame for failing to recognize and treat the real problem. I have PCOS and was told by an internist that my only problem was what he termed "overactive hand to mouth syndrome" when, in fact, I was consuming 1,200 calories a day on a regular basis. He never did any tests. He just looked at my fat body and assumed that I was gluttonous.

It's hard to understand or even comprehend the prejudice and emotional abuse that the obese suffer at the hands of the ignorant and often even at the hands of those who love them if you've never been there yourself, but please understand that underneath that layer of fat is often a hurting person who has some very raw emotions about the subject and don't be surprised when you see those emotions coming out when you ask them how they got that way. It's comparable to asking a terminal cancer patient what they did to give themselves cancer.