General

So I've been various flavours of hurt/upset/angry/confused by a number of posts lately, in which members here (most of them apparently not fat, though I don't know that for sure) explain to the rest of us that fat is by choice.

This seems to me a very very complicated thing indeed. Of course, how fat I AM at this moment is by choice. And that's presumably true for most, if not all, the gainers here. But I thought it would be interesting to hear from people who have not been able to be thin in a reasonable, healthy, maintainable way.

I, for one, have never had a viable choice not to be fat. To lose weight in my 20s and 30s, I needed to eat ridiculously little--like no solid food for four months, or under 1000 cal/day kind of little--and exercise a lot, which manifested in a very unpleasant, very tired, very unproductive me. The minute I went back to what they told me was a 'maintenance' diet, i.e. 2000 cals and half an hour a day of exercise, I gained weight.

I would love to hear from other members who think of themselves as 'naturally' fat--what extremes did you have to go to to lose weight? How did you feel about yourself and your body? Or, alternatively, how did you get happy with your body without going through the Diet Madness Tunnel of Darkness?

People vary in their body composition and metabolic rates, so the calorie and weight guidelines are not much more than that -- guidelines.

For example, people with above average muscle (such as athletes) will typically find that they are "overweight" according to the guidelines, while measurements would show a low body fat percentage.

Similarly, resting metabolic rate (RMR) can vary widely between people of the same weight, height and body composition. I gain weight very easily, and after keeping a food diary which showed that I gained weight on 2000 calories a day (under the recommended calorie allowance for my weight and height), wondered whether I was keeping an accurate diary or not. When I had my RMR tested, I found that it was 1500 calories a day -- so that on a 2000 calorie/day diet, I would gain a pound a week.

Given that reality, my choice was either to try to:

a) maintain a 1500 calorie/day diet indefinitely (probably not possible)
add exercise
c) gain weight to the point where I can maintain.

I've chosen a mixture of and c). As my belly and love handles filled out, at first I felt guilty. But then I stopped gaining, and as time has gone on, the added exercise has built muscle; I even went down a pants size. At the last doctor's visit, even though I weighed in 20 pounds heavier than before, the doctor didn't give me any grief, since he initially thought I had lost rather than gained weight.

I hope this is hitting home for some of you who believe that we're fat because we don't know any better or don't have any self control. Some of the most intense self control I've seen in everyday life is exhibited by fat people--just think of all the liquid diets, grapefruit diets, cabbage soup diets, etc. I know you think we didn't do them, or didn't do them right, or snuck candy when no one was looking. I'm here on behalf of everyone on this thread and fat people everywhere to tell you you can kiss my fat &%*. We ALL went hungry for far longer than was sane.

Fat is a choice for some, sure. And some of us choose to be fatTER because we love it. But being fat is emphatically NOT a choice for most of us.

If you truly think you're into fat people, learn a little about us. Stop spreading the fat-hating garbage of the multibillion dollar diet and exercise industries. And start believing the people you profess to be attracted to.

Obesity researchers are incredibly stupid, and don't have a clue. To make things worse, any type of comission does not include anyone who is fat. Could you imagine if they had a comission who made policy for African Americans that did not have an African American on it? All of their research is how to get "those people" to eat less. They refuse to look at genetics, dieting, or anything outside of the box.

In my unscientific opinion, I think some people were just meant to weigh more than others. We weigh differently when we are born. To try to make everyone the same, people are put on diets. The body thinks that their is a famine, and burns less and less fat. In addition, the mind tells the body to eat more because there is not enough calories come in. So, when the body mechanisms kick in, eating more and burning less causes more fat to be stored.

If they just left people alone, there would probably very few people over 250 pounds. In societies were fat is more accepted, there are less fat people because there is less dieting. In societies where fat is not accepted, there are more fat people and bigger fat people