[size=150]Plumpers…it seems the trend of the future…get used to it
Don’t know about your area, but in my local there are plenty of overweight women here. When I used to live in L.A. there were a lot less. But in the NE USA, fat seems to rule when the ladies hit their 40’s to 50’s. And many are giant size at much younger ages. When I go to Walmart, some of the young girls in their early twenties and thirties are morbidly obese.
And fat men are a’plenty as well, so they are not excused.
But with women they are at a disadvantage as they are shorter and have less height to carry the bulk, have less muscles to burn calories and have a slower metabolism and generally less active lifestyle. Couple all this with the Martha Stewart syndrome of perfecting everything non-essential to one’s life and the ladies have no time to cook healthy foods or exercise.
My son came home from a double date last night and reported his friends girlfriend (a sophomore in college) had gained about 30 pounds, over the last 3 months and mostly in her butt, He said she was chubby before, now is even fatter.
I asked if she was a ‘stacked and packed’ variety (chunky with big breasts) he said she was packed, but not stacked and only an ‘A’ cup. Well, sometime the fat can work to a woman’s advantage, but not always it seems.
I told my son if he gets a plump girl to marry expect her to plump up further as the bad diet of today is the terrible diet of tomorrow. (Even the good diet of today becomes the bad diet of tomorrow since our metabolism goes downhill.)
Myself, I got used to plumpers a long time ago.
I enjoy plumpers like ripe, bursting figs just dripping with nectar.
What else could I do…divorce my wife for being chubby?
Well, some men do, but my wife stuck with me through many problems, so I can only return the loyalty and love she gave me.
And really plenty of skinny women that are as ugly as can be with their insides.
If tends continue, many of you guys will be trading in your ‘Playboy’ or ‘Hustler’ subscriptions for ‘Voluptuous’ or ‘Plumpers’ subscriptions.
…My discussion of this ‘fat’ topic from an earlier post.
(…) writes:
“I would like to know the formula for finding the calories per day that I would need to lose weight.”
V writes:
For those that do not know how calories work, when you eat 3500 unburned or unneeded calories, whether in a day or over a week, it puts on a pound of fat. (For reference: 3200 calories is the same as 4 sticks or one pound of butter.) We all burn up so much calories in a day and my balance point at 53 years of age for my height and metabolism and lifestyle is about 1800 to 1900 calories a day. It took some time to figure this number out, but thorough trial and error I now have it, although metabolisms change with age, as my caloric balance point was about 2500 calories a day when I was 30 years old.
If you are in a big city you can get a Resting Metabolism Rate test at a hospital or gym to find out your caloric Resting Metabolism Rate. This Resting Metabolism Rate is very important to know since shows you your budget in a numerical caloric figure and this gives you the clarity to know the dividing line where good eating starts to turn to bad eating or when you eat too many calories for your metabolism and you start putting on the fat. I had to find it out by trial and error, since I live in a rural area with no such test facility. The rough calculation for a MIDDLE AGE person finding out how much to eat is figured like this. You take 10% of the calories you CONSISTENTLY eat each day and this will be your weight if you live sedentary life with little or no exercise. This is a ROUGH calculation only and varies with age, lifestyle and gender, but it works for me where I am at with my life. Each of you must figure it yourself to find your caloric balance point, and as you age this point will vary. But, once you have some clarity in how to figure this number you can design a diet that will take you to your goal weight.
One important note when you figure this calculation - you must be steady with the calories you eat when you are figuring it out. You cannot figure this number if you eat 3000 calories one day, then 2200 the next, then 1100 after that and 4200 the day after that and so on. You must be somewhat steady and within a 100 to 150 calories a day or less difference each day to learn from this. The more exacting in consistency each day you can get the better. It doesn’t matter if you are consistent with eating 4000 calories a day. Eat it consistently and see where it gets you then go from there. Once you settle on a daily caloric figure you see what that figure gives you in body weight then you have somewhere to start from when deciding how much you need to eat to get where you want to be. If you lose no weight at the figure you consistently eat at you must cut back. If you are gaining weight at this consistent figure then you have the answer right there. Your body will tell you what the figure is if you can listen to it.
For Example: If you eat 3000 calories per day and are sedentary you could weigh in the 300 pound range. This calculation would apply to female middle aged couch potatoes that sits at home all day and does not move around much. I find that most people can add 250 to 400 calories to this figure to get a realistic reading. So, a middle age 300 pounder that works or exercises might be eating 3400 calories per day on average. If they can eat more calories than this and not be heavier they are blessed with a high metabolism, if the opposite is true for them then they suffer from slower metabolism. Some overweight people blame their fat on slow metabolisms? None of us have dead metabolism that turn air to fat, if we stop eating we will starve to death.
No one gets fat from breathing air and drinking water, even though many overeaters swear to this belief. We each have a caloric balance point whether it is a slow metabolism or not and for success with weigh loss over the long haul we need to have clarity of what that caloric number is. It is no different from the debtor that has a financial balance point with their budget. If they stay within their budget they are debt free, if they go beyond their financial balance point or budget they are in debt. We debt to ourselves with fat when we refuse to live within our caloric budget. With my lifestyle and activity level, I can add 400 calories to the 1500 calories I need to maintain 155 pounds, so this is where I get the 1900 calories a day diet to live on. (Actually I try to eat 1800 per day 6 days a week and can eat up to 2500 calories on Sundays when I eat breakfast with the family.) All these figures don’t have to exact. Some days I eat a little more, some days less. But, on average I have to fit into the caloric budget or will put on the fat. In addition, we burn a slightly different amount of calories each day even if we do the same thing and work at the same activities. Many variables with calories such as external and internal temperature, stress and just the fact hat we are not perfect calorie burning machines.
This brings up a point about the 2 types of fat people: Those that are fat by desire and those that are fat by design. Those that compulsively overeat are fat by desire (Even though they say they don’t desire to be fat, it is from their choosing.) Those that are fat from ignorance of calories are fat from design. Such as traveling salesman or busy people that don’t necessarily eat that much or compulsively eat, they just don’t eat smart and eat too many calories for their caloric budget from lack of clarity and knowledge. I can tell you flat out, if I was not an overeater but added the “normal” American breakfast of eggs, sausage, flapjacks with sweetened coffee each morning I’d be fat - unless I cut those calories out someplace else during the day. I just don’t burn all those calories as I did when I was young to eat 3 big meals, so, I must divide my calories throughout the day somewhat methodically or I will be fat.
If we look at all the older people with pot belies, they ere the young trim people of yesterday for the most part, but slowing metabolisms caught up with them. As we age, we lose muscle as well as having our metabolism slow down and this produces the double whammy effect that just snowballs with more and more fat on our bodies. When we add a pound of muscle through exercise such as weight training the pound of muscle burns an extra 50 calories a day while resting, so the more muscle we add the more calories we burn for free. (Some sources claim this figure to be less if your muscles are inactive.) As we lose a pound of muscles as we age the opposite holds true. so, our good diet of today becomes the bad diet of tomorrow. Same calories only now those same calories produces fat on our aging bodies that used to not be fattening when we were younger. I think most of us on these lists are fat from compulsively eating, but either way fat by design or fat by desire, we need to have clarity about calories and nutrition if we want to succeed with weight loss.
If a person refuses to count calories from some personal prejudice or just lazy, they must be on a pre planned and pre weighed diet. This way, someone has done the work for you. One thing is for sure, they cannot keep on directing their own eating as their own direction got them into all this mess, so they need some other standard that what they feel like eating that day. With calorie counting, it is no big deal for me since I soon learned the numbers for most foods and it becomes second nature just as I write down my money with my Debtors Anonymous program. I have been recording my finances and spending since 1987 and recording my food and calories since the late 1990’s. I can tell you flat out, if I did not have this numerical clarity with my food and finances I’d be sunk with my OA and DA programs.
As far as diets? My diet is diverse, nature based, balanced and based on the food pyramid. Remember those of you that hate the word “diet”- the word diet comes from the Greek word meaning “way of living” and we all need a new way of living if our old way is not working for us. When I lost my final 25 pounds of fat it was from cutting back 300 calories a day for many months and that was how I lost all the other previous fat by cutting back few hundred calories until each plateau in weight loss, then I would cut back some more if I wanted to lose more fat. I lost the weight slow and consistently in a sustainable manner eating a balanced diet. All these fad diets that are unsustainable and not healthy can be harmful to you in the long run. You need sustainability, for once you are off the old unbalanced diet the fat comes back with your normal unhealthy eating patterns. The only difference between my losing weight diet and my normal diet as of now is the losing weight diet was on average 15% less calories per day than the one I am on now. With eating 300 calories per day less I was able to lose almost 2-3 pound per month to finally get the rest of my fat off.
When I was heavier I had to cut back more, since I was eating over 2800 calories a day, but through trial and error I kept cutting back with the calories when I would plateau and the weight stopped coming off. I cut back from 2800 calories to 2400, then down to 2200 and then to 2000. After each plateau in weight loss I would need to cut back if I wanted to get to my goal (normal) weight. You see, the numbers will tell you themselves what you need to do, If you stop losing weight at 2500 calories a day, then you need to cut back to 2200 calories a day to see that that figure gives you and if that is not enough you cut back some more. We are all different with all different metabolic rates you we each need to figure our own numbers. If you were towing sleds in Antarctica like a couple of women explorers did they figured they need 5000 calories a day to stay balanced. But, once they returned home they had to go back to a normal eating plan as their workload was drastically changed and they did not have to burn calories battling frigid temperatures as well. Once I have my diet worked out I now have a “way of living” that can allows me to be at peace with food. But, I must also practice acceptance as well as work the 12 steps to find consistent peace and work a balanced recovery program.
Balanced living is very important to addicts. You can lose weight by eating a 1000 calories a day diet of candy bars. But is it healthy? Is it sustainable? Is it balanced? What about vomiting and laxatives so you can artificially eat more food? Working yourself ragged exercising day and night to the point of ill health to eat more? All must be answered as NO! These are not healthy or sustainable practices for a lifetime of weight control. So make your losing weight diet and lifestyle healthy and sustainable so the switch back to normal eating is not that different from a diet of weight loss eating, with the main difference just being less calories by 15%-20%. Healthy diets, being smart about nutrition and calorie counting only goes so far - don’t neglect the spiritual end of recovery. In the 12 step programs we need to work the steps as well and watch our stress. If our lives are in ruin through unbalanced and stressful living, counting calories and study metabolic rates will do nothing for us as we stuff the food to pacify ourselves.
Adrenal steroids (cortisol) and adrenaline are secreted when a person is under stress reach the brain and over time can affect the structure of the brain. When stress hormones, intended for a life or death fight or flight situation, remain switched for an extended period, they can slow the growth of nerve fibers in the areas of the brain responsible for emotions and other brain functions. We also produce cortisol from any other stressors the body perceives, whether it is physical stress, such as a sickness, injury, surgery, or temperature extremes as well as psychological stress that we and the world put on us.
Each of us has produces a different amount of these chemicals and has a different sensitivity to them and this might be the missing link as to a part of the question as to why some of us are more addictive than others with how we each produce and react to these stress chemicals differently. Besides fat, anger and depression can be helped with exercise. Exercise helps remove these stress chemicals from our bodies as well as produce other chemicals that give us a sense of well being - endorphins. Yes, we have our own drug pusher within each of us. We can learn to reduce the urge to pacify ourselves with food, drugs, alcohol, compulsive spending from stress, but really need to work on restructuring our lives so they are less stressful if we ever want to find peace and serenity. You see, 12 steps or not, we all have to answer to natural law. Within the boundaries of natural law is where stress chemicals come from within us and as addicts I believe we are super sensitized to these chemicals and we seek relief though our various addictions. So, as addicts we should be in tune with using any tools available to us for recovery purposes whether it is the spiritual tools of the 12 steps or the mechanical tools of eating right and exercise.
I find that sometime spiritual practitioners neglect the natural laws that govern our bodies and suffer in this area from lack of living a balanced life. Some of us forget we are spiritual beings residing in physical bodies living in physical world and governed my both spiritual and physical or natural laws in addition to man made laws. We need some effort with spiritual work and some effort in physical work for a good balance or as the Buddha recommended - taking the middle path. Joining the simple living movent in 1996 also helped with reducing stress and giving me a new life. [/size]