We aren't all the same.

The calorie numbers recommended by the BMR or RMR charts don't apply to every individual body.

Bodies of the same age and size don't ALL use the same amount of energy, even when their activity levels are similar. Even when the amount of "Calories-in" is the same, the difference in the amount of "Calories-out" can cause different weight results.

Like the author of the article below, I've seen very little acknowledgement, understanding, or acceptance of this very basic truth. I've found that, in general, people are surprisingly resistant to the concept.

Why “Put Down the Cheesburger” is BS
                         by noceleryplease www. fiercefreethinkingfatties.com

So there’s this woman I was talking to last week.

She and I are pretty much the same height.  I am probably 10, maybe 12 pounds heavier than her.  We both exercise, I think, very similar amounts… although she does have a job where she is up and about more than my sedentary desk job.
So we have these two people who are both maintaining a similar lifestyle.

And I happened to be talking about what I would typically eat in a day, and her response was… “That would barely last me through lunch”.

Wait…  two people of similar build don’t require the same food intake to maintain that similar weight?

Hmmmmm…. now this comes as no shock to me, because I know that different people have different metabolisms, and the fact that even though I am heavier than her, I have to eat about a third LESS than her to maintain my weight, well, it’s just one of those things that JUST IS.

But it got me to thinking about all those people in the comments that I refuse to read and how they are all always all “Put down the cheeseburger, fatty” and telling people how to live their lives.

And it occurs to me, that these people may, in fact, really think that significant, permanent weight loss could be achieved, if only the fat people would stop stuffing their faces… because obviously, the only reason someone would be fat is if they were eating ridiculous amounts of food every day.

And why would they think that?

I suspect it might have something to do with the fact they they, at whatever weight they are at, are able to maintain that weight with a fairly comfortable intake of food.  They are not feeling restricted with their intake.  They get to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And sometimes “indulge” in “bad” foods, etc…

So if they can maintain their weight, with what they consider to be a perfectly satisfying amount of food,  why couldn’t someone else just eat the same as them?  Why, oh, why, would they be DESTROYING our country, just for the sake of being able to stuff their faces with baby flavored donuts?

And the answer, of course, is… “Hey, JackAss, how’d you like to live on what it would take someone else to maintain your weight?”

Doing a little math here…

The Mayo Clinic handy online calorie calculator tells me that at my age, height and activity level, I should eat 2050 calories a day to maintain my weight.

To this I say… Ha!  Ha Ha Ha Ha!  and also, Ha!

Maintaining my weight requires only about 80% of that number – around 1600 to 1700 calories a day.

But there are TONS AND TONS of people out there for whom the 2050 mark is correct, and they go around eating 2050 calories a day, which to me sounds like a pretty decent amount of food, and they maintain their weight with no trouble, and they wonder why other people are so fat, because they are maintaining their weight just fine on 2050 calories a day, so why would other people EAT MORE THAN THAT AND GET SO FAT?

And the answer to that question is…  “Hey, Jackass, if I ate 2050 calories a day, I am not sure where my weight would end up, but I can guarantee you it’d be more than you, and you would look at me and wonder why I was so fat and assume it was because of all the cake, EVEN THOUGH I AM EATING EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOU!!”

So let’s just imagine one of these comment trolls for a moment.  Let’s say this troll is, 6ft 2in.  And, let’s put him in the “normal BMI range at 185 pounds. We’ll make him 35 years old, and, lightly active (the Mayo Clinic defines that as moderate exercise 2 or 3 times a week).

So our hypothetical guy there, he needs 2550 calories a day to maintain his weight.

I have seen 2500 calorie meal plans… that’s a fair amount of food that guy gets to eat.  I’d bet he’s pretty happy with that.  Happy enough that he feels pretty justified in thinking that anyone who eats MORE than him is just a disgusting slob who is draining the economy and health care system with his unceasing demands!

But what if our guy suddenly woke up one day to find that he couldn’t maintain his weight any longer at that “normal” amount of intake.  What if he, like me, could only eat 80% of that amount.  EVERY DAY….  FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE…   or else he would gain weight.

I wonder how he would feel about that?  Would he be quite so smug and secure about “maintaining his weight”?

If he had been happy consuming 2500 calories a day, would he, I wonder… “Put down the cheeseburger?” or “Back away from the table?” in order to cut out the extra calories?

Or would he think that having to get by on around 2000 calories a day was somewhat unreasonable?  Perhaps he would find himself being hungry, even after he got his “limit” of calories.  Maybe he would eat a little more, here and there, to keep from feeling unpleasant, or restricted.

Maybe he would even just keep on eating his 2500 calories a day and gain some weight… and maybe he would think that it was, perhaps, nobody else’s damn business if he was gaining weight, because he’s just eating like every other person and for some reason, it’s just not doing the same thing to him as to everyone else.

Sigh.

The problem is, I think, that until that troll wakes up one day and suddenly finds himself having to live on a permanently restricted diet (and, let’s face it, that’s likely not going to happen because biology doesn’t quite work that way)… he is NEVER going to grasp or understand that there are people in the world who could follow him around all day, eat and do exactly what he does, AND WEIGH A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WEIGHT THAN HIM.

It just does not compute, because we have been told “calories in / calories out” for so long, that people forget that the calories out can actually vary, and “your results may not be similar”.

And I just don’t know how to convince people who have this idea.  I really don’t.

See DietHobby's ARCHIVES for more on this issue.

A Calorie Deficit 

Calories: males vs females

Running down the Up Escalator

Records: My past 8 years 

The Fat Trap

What if there is no such thing as flawed bodies? What if there are only variations? Different shapes, different sizes, different abilities, but all perfect as they are.

What if, instead of reading another article about clothing that hides those “problem areas”, we realized that our bodies don’t have any problem areas?

What would be different if, instead of suggesting that we, and other people, aren't beautiful, we realized that the problem is that we've been taught to see flaws instead of to see beauty.

What if we looked for beauty in every single person we saw. No more flaws, no more problem areas. What if every time we looked at someone else, every time we looked in the mirror, we chose to find something beautiful.

Imagine making an individual choice to view Life in that way.  

Fitness is not a measure of worth.

People who choose exercise activities, meaning various types of movement or fitness, as a hobby are no more praiseworthy than people who choose anything else as a hobby.

Fitness by any definition is not an obligation.

There is also no personal obligation to have a thin, or a “normal-weight", body.

Seeking weight-loss is not the same thing as living with healthy habits, and thin or "not fat" isn’t the same thing as "Healthy".

There are healthy and unhealthy people at every size, so reaching a certain body size is neither a guarantee of health, nor a sure preventative or cure for disease. Body Size and Health are two different things and people can, and often do, pursue one without the other.

In fact, seeking "Health" is not a moral, social, or personal obligation. People can choose to prioritize and pursue health at whatever level they want. Their choice to seek health by “engaging in a healthy lifestyle” doesn’t guarantee them personal health. It also doesn’t make them better than people who don’t choose to prioritize or pursue health.

There are also different kinds of health. and all of them aren't available to everyone.  For example: Mental health and Physical health are two different things, and these two types of health don’t necessarily go together.

What does "healthy" even mean?

Healthy is simply the opposite of  diseased or dead.  Human beings are born, they live, and they die.  The human body is designed to wear out.  Even the most "healthy" bodies become "unhealthy" as they get old, and eventually every body ceases its function. Sudden or lingering, death comes to everyone, and except for death-by-accident, people of all ages become sick and then die.

While the term "healthy", refers to the general condition of a person's mind and body, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain, that term is now loosely used to refer to various substances, activities, and ideas that allegedly promote that general condition.

However, despite all claims to the contrary, most things ...  including personal values ...  that are sold to us by the diet (and fitness) industry are the exact opposite of “healthy”.

A Bigot is someone who, as a result of their own prejudices, thinks of other people with contempt, or intolerance on the basis of that other person's characteristics. Bigotry is the state of mind of a Bigot, and thoughts often tend to become actions.

Those who wish to be, or appear to be, "politically correct" in today's society, know they must work to filter out their prejudices against various characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, disability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, etc.

However, even the most "liberal" people commonly practice Bigotry when it comes to the physical characteristics of people who have Fat bodies. Our current society still accepts, allows, and encourages such thinking and behaviors.

Here, the term "Fat Bigot" is used to define someone who is prejudiced against the physical characteristics of people who have fat bodies, not someone who HAS a fat body. 

When Fat Bodies Just Look Wrong 
   
             by Ragen Chastain.

There is a post over on This is Thin Privilege written by a girl who was told that she couldn’t wear the same shorts as a thinner student because she didn’t “present” the same way as the other student.  This highlights a particular kind of fat bigotry wherein fat bodies are judged to look “wrong” doing the same thing that thin bodies do, just because they are fat.

Wrong can take a lot of meanings in this context, one of the first is the idea that they look obscene (remember the Lane Bryant ad that showed about 25% of the skin of a Victoria’s secret ad but was controversial because it was judged look obscene - obscene here meaning “omg big boobs!”?)  Or, as in the example from above, fat bodies are seen as un-presentable, or needing to be more covered/hidden than other bodies.

And how many times have we heard the “fat girl” rules of fashion – black clothes absorb light and hide our shape (aka “slimming”), choose clothes based on their ability to make you look as much like the thin ideal as possible (aka “Flattering“) and that anything else is an affront to everyone who sees us and a moral failing on our part.

This type of situation is often about a bigot asking to be accommodated by a fat person.  The assumption being that if someone doesn’t like fat bodies, doesn’t like looking at fat bodies, doesn’t think that fat bodies should do certain things or dress in certain ways, then the people with those fat bodies have a responsibility – nay, an obligation – to “fix” the situation by doing what the fat hater wants us to do.  As if the solution might not be for them to get the hell over their bigotry, or at least practice the ancient art of looking at something else.

When the teacher told the student that the shorts were inappropriate on her fatter body but not on the thinner body, what he was actually saying was “I’m a size bigot, accommodate me.”  Our society is set up to accommodate fat bigotry in many ways, perhaps the most insidious is convincing fat people to take an active part in it by policing ourselves and other fat people for failing to follow the fat girl rules of dressing.

Fat people are allowed to make clothing choices for any reason they want – including dressing for maximum societal approval, as long as they are only choosing for themselves and not trying to tell other fat people what they should wear (hello Underpants Rule, my old friend.)  My suggestion is not that all fat people dress a certain way, but that we should consider being very conscious as to why we make the choices we make, and what that means. So if we choose to dress for societal approval we are keenly aware of why we are doing it so that we don’t get confused and think that there is anything wrong with our actual bodies – rather than realizing that there is a lot wrong with society and that our bodies are fine.

When it comes to the idea of fat bodies looking “wrong,”  the choices I make about what to wear have been less important than my ability to realize when a bigot is asking me to accommodate them, and the fact that I am under absolutely no obligation to do so. If you struggle with feeling like fat bodies (maybe even including yours) look “wrong” then a big part of the problem may be that the media doesn’t seem to be able to show us with heads and faces, let alone as positive role models.  So I suggest taking some time each day to find pictures of fat bodies and work to increase your skill at perceiving beauty.  

by Regen Chastain. 
Dancer, Choreographer, Writer, Speaker, Fat Person
www.  Dances With Fat      

  Life has taught me things things about myself and others. I now realize that I grew up surrounded by Fat Bigots… meaning people who were prejudiced against people who exhibited the physical characteristic of being Fat. That nonacceptance range of of Fat began with the state of being "not thin"; included "a bit plump" or "overweight"; then progressed to "fat", "really fat", and then on to "morbidly obese" and up.

I adopted this mental state as my own, which was a problem since I was never "thin". I was curvy even as a very young adolescent in the late 1950s, I recall my mother's reaction when she weighed me and learned that at 5'1" I weighed 105 lbs. She exclaimed in fear and horror, "That's what I weighed when I got married!!." She was taller, 5'4" so I was already fatter than my mother was as a young adult.. and she was a "normal" person not a "thin" person.

This article brought my attention to the fact that as a child I was taught to dress to please Fat Bigots. When the "squaw shirt" was popular, it was to be avoided because it was a gathered skirt. My peers wore the straight sheath dresses favored by Jackie Kennedy, but these disguised my small waist and emphasized my hips and thighs, so I wore "princess" style, dresses, which skimmed past my waist to smoothly flare out over my hips.

Showing Skin was to be avoided, no bare upper arms or showing of knees or thighs. Modesty wasn't the true reason for this, it was to avoid showing fat. As a freshman in High School, while weighing 115 lbs, I was outfitted with long-line bras, and panty girdles in order to smooth out any bouncy fat that might show through my clothing.

I adopted this mindset as my own. Although there were many girls fatter than me, who dressed without regard to fat concealment, I regarded them with hidden contempt, and I judged my own appearance by comparing myself to girls who were naturally thin.

This attitude followed me throughout my life, and I considered it normal. However, I was a middle-aged woman with years of Therapy behind me, before I realized that what was wrong was Society, not my body.

I always knew that I was dressing for societal approval, and I still do this. However, I do it now as a conscious choice, using personal preferences I've established over years of habit.

There are lots of different types of bodies, and different ways to acceptably dress them.  
See below:  Aerosmith's - Pink