Excuses, excuses

They call it an obesity epidemic. More and more people, both adults and children, are fat. Its hard to argue this, just step outside and take a look around. Seems like every other person has a roll around their waist and a double chin. Its funny because when I was fat, I felt like the odd man out, that one fat guy you'd see in a day. Nowadays, I think I'd fit right in, just another fatty out and about. Its crazy to me, like the universe is switching things up; what's up is down, what's white is black. Being overweight is becoming more the norm than the exception.

There are lots of reasons being suggested for this: too much TV, too much time in front of a computer, drive thru, saturation of fast food marketing, ready to eat dinners for the time constrained, people not cooking at home anymore, etc. I tend to believe all of them. What I don't believe is the bullshit reasons some of these people have for their size.
"I have a thyroid problem."
"I have bad genes."
"I don't have time to exercise."
"I have (fill in the blank) medical problem."

Some people truly do have one or more of these issues that contributes to their size, but most don't. Instead they find an excuse, any excuse to avoid responsibility for themselves. But its easy enough to call them on it; simply open up their fridge and cupboards. I guarantee you you will find more than enough evidence to dispute their excuses and find them personally responsible for their problem.

My mother is like this. She was a thin teenager but started to battle her weight as she entered her twenties and produced 2 children. After my parents divorced, she stopped watching herself and ballooned up to over 200lbs. She managed to lose this weight after joining a now defunct company called the "Weight Loss Clinic", which I too used for a while, but it was only a short respite as she eventually gained back the weight plus more. She's now bigger than ever and despite her claims that her doctor has pronounced her "medically fit", she looks like she could drop dead at any time. She smokes and drinks and gets virtually no cardio exercise. She cooks and claims to not eat much junk or bad foods but yet there she is, horribly obese. The last time I visited her, she said something about not having anything bad in her kitchen so I called her on it. Guess what I found?

Nacho chips and salsa (not bad but chips are bad regardless), snack bags of nuts, buttered microwavable popcorn, candies that she claims she doesn't eat, snacking crackers like Triscuits, Mr. Freezies (although they said sugar free), lots of beer and liquor, and a couple of other items I can't quite recall. Now my mother does cook most of her meals and she does try to be conscious of what goes into them, but she also buys a lot of fast food while at work. She denys this but one look at the floor in the back seat of her car reveals paper bags from Burger King, Harvey's, etc. And its not uncommon for her to hit the pizzeria a few doors down while at work for potato wedges, fries, pizza slice, or whatever else might catch her eye. I won't say this goes on every day, but something must be accounting for her weight. Booze has alot of calories and my mother enjoys her drinks. She works in a paint store so she's strong from carrying around cans of paint but she isn't getting any kind of cardio workout, nothing to get her heart beating so she can burn off more calories. And once she's home, she sits. She doesn't even clean her home, she pays my sister to go in and do it. LAZY!

We have another family friend who is quite obese and always has been. She doesn't work, never has, instead living off the system for most of her adult life until she married a mechanic and didn't qualify anymore. This lady cooked just about everything in the fat that she kept from other foods like bacon and stored in her fridge. How about that for artery clogging, weight packing goodness! Yet she talks about thyoid issues. Ya, right.

I noticed during lunch at the cafeteria in college what people were ordering. The thin or average sized girls were getting salad, fruit, water, fresh made sandwiches. The bigger girls were buying hamburgers, pizza slices, poutine (fries with cheese and gravy), soda, chocolate milk, candy bars and chips. Coincidence? I think not!

I was in a Subway not long ago and the overweight girl ahead of me was having her meat based sub (can't recall what kind it was) dressed. Along with the veggies, she had ordered bacon and "lots of mayo". Now I'm sure this girl is having issues with her weight like the rest of us and she probably would justify her fast food purchase by claiming it was Subway and thus a healthier choice than say pizza or a burger. True, but she blew it by adding the bacon and lots of mayo. Her sub which could have come in around 700 calories had to be at least 1200 or more. Mayo is frighteningly high in calories. Plus she bought the combo so she had a soda and cookies as well. Tack on another 500+ calories. Jared would be rolling over in his grave. Wait....he's alive? Oh...

And there's a movement out there, maybe you've heard of it? Its called fat acceptance. These whiners blog about how awful it is that people don't accept fat people for who they are. They complain about movies like WALL-E where the human race is depicted as fat, lazy, immobile clowns who can't do anything for themselves thus promoting the stereotypes. They tend to be single and bitter. From my perspective, they appear to want the world to cater to them, for members of the opposite sex to find them sexy and attractive or toss aside normal physical attraction and love the person inside because they're so wonderful. If you don't, you're shallow. God forbid they conform to the norm and present themselves better. They're fat and you're gonna like it!

This was prevelant in online dating. The site I subscribed to had forums members could participate in and discuss whatever topics they wished. Often, the topic of being overweight and unable to attract a mate came up. They would whine about how they'd send off an email to someone they liked only to receive no reply back or worse, a reply stating that the object of their affection didn't feel an attraction to them and was not interested. Of course, this meant that person was shallow. How dare they not see my inner beauty and what I can offer them! They only want to date a Barbie doll or supermodel types. Baloney! Attraction is very important to most people when it comes to dating and fat people just aren't that attractive. Most of the people who aren't concerned with looks at all are people who don't have them themselves. Rarely will you find someone who looks like Cameron Diaz in "Something About Mary" who only sees the inner beauty of somebody. Most people prefer to date within their own league or close to it. And another thing that was very interesting about these people? They wouldn't respond to other fatties or unattractive people who emailed them either. Double standard?

I, too, made bad choices not that long ago. I still do. But at least I owned up to them. I did it to myself. Nobody forced me to eat that extra large pizza with extra cheese, or prepare and eat 3 big sandwiches as a snack, or order a couple of Big Macs with super sized fries and pop. Nope. I did it to myself. While my family tends to be on the large side with many family members carrying around plenty of extra weight, I don't blame my problems on genes. It just means I have to work that little bit harder and be more diligent in my food choices. I'm basically lazy but I force myself into the gym first thing in the morning for 50 minutes on an elliptical and another 15-20 on the bike. I had my thyoid checked, you know just to be sure, and its fine. Nope, I love food. Always have, always will. And when I was a big fatty, I knew it was me. I owned my problem as Dr. Phil would say, and I took personal responsibility for it. Too bad so many won't.