Exercise and Eating

Would you rather eat or exercise?

Which brings you more satisfaction?
Just curious as usual.

I feel a lot more like exercising when I am eating enough to keep my body healthy and energetic (At 67, that statement is somewhat relative.)

Ann

Dear Alice,
Eating should fuel the body and the work it has to do. When eating becomes an indulgent salve for the mind the result is fat. The more you eat, the more you need to eat to feel not hungry. That is why all those snacks make you fat. If a person just ate what their body needed to produce the energy they expended every day, no one would be fat.

Oh, but we have to have a break at 10 and lunch at 12 and another break at 2 and then dinner at ..... All un-necessary food that fills up the time. Need I say about the sodas that are used instead of water.

Water. It is the great hydrator, the great cleanser, the flush that everyone needs.

My grands would not drink water unless it is flavored and had sugar.

Hell in a handbasket comes to mind, healthwise.

Love,
Betty

What Betty said.

Some people eat to live while others live to eat.

I think we all enjoy a good meal and fattening desserts. A special meal or dessert should be a reward and not a daily diet.

If you can't burn off those excess calories by work or exercise, then you pay the price.

Abe, didn't you say something on another thread about broad generalizations?

Different people have different physiologies. Some bodies tend to carry more weight than others, even with carefully controlled intake. Many people with weight problems never eat desserts, fattening or otherwise,and many of them exercise frequently. It's a complex situation that doesn't, at this time, have a simple answer.

We all eat to live. If we didn't we would die. Some of us enjoy putting more time and attention into preparing healthy food in a tasty and attractive manner, and making mealtime a pleasure. Some others opt for unhealthy fast food that they can gulp down quickly without having to spend time or think about it and clog their arteries with toxic chemicals and unhealthy fats as opposed to healthy fats which we need to burn for greater energy. Our individual bodies' hormone and chemical make-ups determine how much of the food we eat gets used for energy to work. Mental attituces have an effect, as do the chemicals and hormones added to the food that we buy.

We need more hydroponic farmers like Betty, and more research into what makes food healthy and non-toxic. We need more images of people with realistic bodies to emulate. Too many young people have eating disorders because they fear being fat - and therefore unacceptable - when the truth is, food is a necessity and ought to be a pleasure.

But then, our Calvinistic mindset puts that little message at the back of our heads that anything pleasurable must also be sinful.

Avocados are good for us. Butter is better for us than low-fat margarine. A little dark chocolate and red wine are good for us. So is eating locally grown, lovingly prepared food in a relaxed, pleasurable atmosphere.

Ann

I am wondering how excessive eating brings pleasure to anyone. I am speaking of eating such
vast quantities of food it sickens one.

Preparing heathy, nourishing food is a talent.

Eating too much is hardly an accomplishment.

Why not get a hobby?

Alice, I don't think very many people do that. I think that we (me included) look at obese people and make assumptions. If we truly saw all people as being the same, we wouldn't judge someone by the amount of fat under their skin any more than we would by the color of their skin.

Our assumptions affect their reality. They hear our judgmental, generalized statements, and believe them. That belief affects their self-image. Their self-image affects their chemical and hormonal make-up. An anorexic person believes s/he is fat, and cannot be forced to eat the food s/he needs to survive. Two sides to one coin, both from believing that we have to fit an imposed ideal to be acceptable.

Ann

Ann,

I don't consider you to have a weight problem. The person I am talking about weighs in excess of 300 pounds and brags about what he eats.

It as though he is oblivious to the fact that he is ruining his health.

I am way, way, way too skinny. However, the new meds I'm taking are increasing my appetite, and I try to eat all day long, grazing along the way with ice cream, chocolate, whatever I can find or Tom finds. Two pieces of ice cream birthday cake yesterday from my daughter's birthday celebration!!

Carol

Alice, I didn't think you were talking about me. But I do have enough of a problem keeping my weight in line to be sympathetic to those who are not successful.

That bragging might be a defense mechanism. Bragging gives him a sense of self-worth to counter the judgment of others.

When I was young and very skinny, I believed that I was fat. It thought that enjoying a meal was a sign of gluttony, so I would go days without eating anything. Finally, my survival instincts would click in, and I would eat - and eat, and eat. I didn't enjoy it. I would feel guilty for having given in to my depravity, so I would work out and work out some more and not eat until I was starving again.

I had this belief in my head - where it came from is beside the point. I believed it, so it was my reality - that only beautiful people were acceptable, and acceptability meant being loved, and being loved meant survival, ...and being beautiful meant being thin, only I also believed that I was fat, even though pictures from that time clearly show that I was not. Most of the time, I was actually skinny, but we are all what we believe we are.

Eventually, the repeated damage to my metabolic systems kicked in, and I started putting on weight, even though I would still go days without eating. It took a counselor to help me learn that my physiological problems were connected to my misperceptions, and I was able to turn those false beliefs around.

I am only telling you this bit of my own story as an example. We don't really know what is going on in other people's heads, why they behave the way they do, or where the patterns came from. So we can only start out by seeing ourselves and everybody else as OK.

It isn't always an easy task, but we can try.

Love all you guys,

Ann

Ann,

I love the way you think and express yourself. I accept the weight of the person--what I am having trouble with is the thought of losing him due to his weight.

Of course I keep my thoughts to myself, but have a time at family dinners when others urge him to eat.

I need to realize that many overweight folks outlast their thin counterparts.

This food thing is a sensitive subject as experienced on previous threads.
If one says, “many people” or “some people” it is not a generalization.
I think many of us have relatives or friends with a weight problem. We also hear statistics about the general level of obesity among men, women and how children are becoming obese at their young age. For some, eating is an obsession. The more they eat, the more they require to fill their expanding stomach.
Our local priest was huge. Anytime there was food available, he was present. Recently he had an operation that reduced the size of his stomach. He has lost considerable weight and looks good. He says he feels great.
Eating healthy food with low cholesterol helps, however the amount of food consumed, healthy or not, affects the size of the stomach. When the stomach feels empty, there is a hunger.

The above comments are strictly my own and not intended to offend.

8/16/2010

Alice..

A year ago when I found out I had the
beginning of Diabetes, I weighed in at 186,
way too much for my weight at 5.8 So I
researched the Diabetes Foundation and
other sites about food, first I dropped all
the white stuff, sugar, bread, etc. No desserts
No cake, No candy. In March I stopped taking
the diabetes pill, from April through now August
I dropped 16 lbs , I'm now 170 lbs and 10 lbs to
go. I'm proud I did it, it took four months just to
drop 16 lbs, I've read that it's better to loose
weight slowly then drop it all at once. I eat my
dinner on a salad plate not a dinner plate. My
diabetes reading has been 80-130 all these
months, which is normal..

Cheers..Joe

Good, Joe. I have dropped weight also and have more to go.

Abe, The stomach surgery sounds like a good deal for the 300 pounder.

Good job, Joe

Ann

I can't speak for anyone else here. I can only say that I have not been offended by anything anyone has said.

What I have been doing is pointing out that this is a complex issue. We all need both to eat and to move to live. Some bodies are different from others, and we don't know why. To assume that one knows why and what should be done when an individual's body size and construction doesn't meet our image of acceptability is a generalization, since every individual is different.

There are recent studies, for instance, that indicate that the quality of the cholesterol we take in is more significant than the amount. When a steer or dairy cow, for example, is kept penned up (and doesn't get the opportunity to move) and fed grains rather than grass, its fat doesn't produce enough CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) for its system to burn the fat as energy.

This tells us many things. One of the more obvious being that it is probably a good idea for people to move and eat green stuff. It also tells us that we have to pay attention to the quality of the food we eat, since those same studies have also shown that we can consume much more dairy fat, and burn more of it for energy, when it comes from healthy cattle, which generally has 80% more CLA in it, and so we what we get by consuming it is more energy, not more stored fat. So, consuming less cholesterol is only a part of the issue.

It's just me, again, saying that we might do more good if we focus our attention on the quality and availability of healthy food for everybody. We need green stuff that hasn't been poisoned with pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and complete protein sources (eg meat, poultry, fish, milk, and eggs) that have lived in a healthy environment, and have been properly fed and exercised themselves.

And it wouldn't hurt to consider the sacrifice made by the plants and animals who die so we can live, and express our gratitude to them in some way.

I got in big trouble with my mother-in-law over that one. One day she asked then seven-year-old David to say Grace, and he replied, "My mother says that any meal prepared with love has already been blessed." She was not a happy camper.

Sometimes the things I say do not completely convey the message I intended, so please don't you guys be offended either.

Ann

Exercise and eating eh! Take some advice from my own experience:
1. Don't eat soup while jogging it's messy.
2. Eating sandwiches while swimming makes them soggy and nasty.
3.Eating a chinese take away and playing football can be hazardous with those chop sticks.
4. Doing press ups while attempting to eat a three course meal is very tricky. You can get thrown out of the restaurant.

I am not offended either.

Ann, You are a fountain of knowledge.

And David, I am glad to see your whacky humor survived the knee surgery.

alice wrote:

And David, I am glad to see your whacky humor survived the knee surgery.

YES!

Thanks, David, for that delightful and educational input.

Ann