If You're Fat and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

I'm fat. Really fat. I admit it, I'm very much overweight. Want to know specifics? I'm 5'2" and weight about 240 pounds. Yes, you read that correctly. To be a healthy weight for my age group and height, I would have to lose around 40% of my current mass. That's quite a lot of fat to burn.

And you know what? It's hard to be overweight. Not only do I have an increased risk of about a zillion different health conditions, some of them deadly and all of them pretty scary, but it's also plays one heck of a large part in lowering my self-esteem. I'm fat, I'm a blob, I'm a land-whale, I'm ugly, I'm not fit to be seen in public. If you're fairly overweight, you've probably had these thoughts a time or two yourself. It seems to come with the package. Society's obsession with skinny people tells us that we're not attractive, that we're not desirable, that we ought to settle for less than other people because it's the most we're going to get.

Know what? That's bull. We're just as good as any other skinny person. There just happens to be more to us on the outside.

Probably the number one cause of obesity in North America right now is overeating. Not only that, but not eating enough of the healthy stuff. Eating at McDonalds every day isn't a healthy way to go about things. It sounds obvious, it sounds like everything that fancy nutritionists and experts are saying, and from personal experience, it's true. The trap of convenience food is a hard one to not get caught by. Late for work and didn't have time to eat supper before you left? Grab a burger on the way? Going grocery shopping but you're hungry, and you know not to shop on an empty stomach? Some fries are awefully convenient. Having friends over but don't want to cook? How about ordering some pizza? It's so convenient that half the time we end up eating what's bad for us without even thinking about it, only to pay the price later. Overweight people typically don't make a point of overeating, or eating badly. The bad food just happens to be close at hand when we need it.

Metabolism plays a part in it too. Some people can eat McDonalds once a day and somehow not gain weight. I have no idea how they do it. I sure wish I could! But some people won the metabolic lottery, and other people didn't. I have a crap metabolism.

Sometimes being overweight is genetic. My father was pretty fat. I get most of my build from him, while I get my height (or lack thereof) from my mother. Short plus fat equals bad combination. But here I am, struggling through it. And I know I'm not alone.

Various medical conditions can add to weight gain. And here's the kicker: so can some medical treatments! There are plenty of drugs that list weight gain as a side-effect. A lot of anti-depressants do, for one thing. Just started a course of meds for depression and noticed yourself putting on a few more pounds? It's entirely likely that this is why.

Now here's the really screwy part. Some people are overweight from undereating. I'm not talking about just not eating enough of the right things, though that can play a part. I'm talking about just not eating enough. Eating just enough to prevent yourself from starving to death, but not enough to actually support your body. You go into what I like to call "starvation mode", where your body recognizes that you're not consistantly putting enough calories into yourself to sustain your daily burn of energy. So what do you think it does? It stores every possible calorie as fat. Everything that it can't immediately use, it does its best to turn into fat stores. Your body doesn't know that it's living in a world of abundance. All it knows is that you're not feeding it enough, and it starts to stack on the pounds, so that when the real deprivation comes, you'll be able to live off your stored fat and live a little longer before you eventually starve to death.

Only that doesn't happen. So you keep storing the fat. Having your body in starvation mode can make it incredibly hard to lose weight. Usually the first step in that case is to actually eat more, to convince your body that it doesn't need to keep converting all those empty calories into fat, that there's plenty of food to go around. You'll gain weight for a little while, then you'll start to lose it, so long as you keep things in balance.

Starvation mode is also connected to the current phenomenon on poverty fat. Unfortunately, a lot of cheap things on supermarket shelves are also things that aren't so great for us, nutritionally. White bread is cheaper than whole grain bread. Soda is cheaper than fruit juice. Chips are cheaper than vegetables. So to make money stretch, some people will buy as much as they can of whatever's cheap, just so that the family can be fed. Or else food vouchers will only cover certain items, like white bread instead of whole grain bead. Thus some people who rely on food vouchers or who are low-income are reported a rise in weight gain. Not eating enough of the good stuff, and all the empty calories are being stored as fat.

And let's not forget the classic eating disorder. Eating for comfort is a big one that can lead to an increase in weight. I went through that for years. In the depths of depression, eating was one of the few things that made me feel better. So I ate. And I grew. And now I'm feeling the effects, as well as the effects of just about everything else I listed here.

I'm not making excuses. These are not excuses, but they are reasons, and people often forget that there's a difference.

So what can be done? Are we trapped in a never-ending cycle of being fat? Are we doomed to hear constant admonitions about how we should take better care of ourselves, that we ought to get up off our fat behinds and get some exercise?

Well, probably that last one. Some people will forever be jerks and will say that no matter what we do. But we don't have to listen to them. We can live for ourselves, and dangit, we can be proud of who we are even if we're 10, 20, 50, 100 pounds overweight! We're still lovable! We're still people!

But as for the rest, no! We're not trapped by our current bodies. If we want to change, we can change. And if we want to stay the same, then so be it. I personally want to change my weight, but not because of the misguided notion that I need to be thin to be happy. No, I suspect that a good deal of my health problems are either caused by or exaserbated by my weight, and I'm tired of being in poor health. I'm asthmatic and have arrhythmia, an abnormal heartbeat. Those two things aren't good, let me tell you! I have a strong suspicion that if I lose some weight, the problems associated with those two conditions would decrease, possibly even go away entirely!

But that's my own personal reason. It doesn't have to be yours. We all have to find our own reasons for doing what we do. Understanding what we want and what we're doing often leads to greater motivation to acheive our goals.

It helps, I've found, to find a group of like-minded people. Yes, even things like Weight Watchers, if you like. Or just a few friends online. Find a group of people who can share your problems, and you can share theirs. That helps you to feel like you're not alone in the world, gives you a reminder that other people out there are struggling with the very same problem that you are, and you can both help each other along. Acceptance and motivation can be a wonderful thing.

Remember that you are not your body. There's more to you than what you look like. It's trite, I know, but it's true. I've never met you, but I don't doubt that you've got something wonderful about you that's worth hanging onto. Never forget it. Love it. Let it lift you up above the naysayers and the naggers who seem bent on putting you down.

I couldn't write a Hub about being overweight without throwing in a few tips to help with weight loss. I want you all to know, though, that whatever I say here isn't just being parrotted from someone who claims to be an expert on weight loss. This is stuff I've tried that I've found really works. It may work slowly, and it may take a good deal of effort, but it helps, and might be worth giving a try.

(This also isn't going to be a section consisting of stuff like, "Go to the gym 3 times a week and do a heavy workout for half an hour at a time." No, this is stuff that's more easily accomplished, lots of small steps that add up over time that you can really benefit from without feeling like you're having to stress yourself or make too many sacrifices.)

• Find out what your metabolism is. Different weights require different amounts of energy intake through the day to keep them running and to maintain that weight. Find out what yours is, and then cut back on your calorie intake. For example, if your body needs 3000 calories to maintain its current weight, try cutting that back by 10%. Try to aim for an intake of 2300 calories a day. This advice stands for both overeaters and for undereaters in starvation mode, like myself. You'll end up at a healthy range for supporting your body and for losing some of the weight you've accumulated.
• Fill a 2-litre bottle (or 2 1-litre bottles) with water and drink them throughout the day. That much water may have you running to the bathroom often while your body adjusts to the increased fluids, but it helps flush your system of nasty stuff, and can also fill you up so that you don't feel as hungry quite as often.
• Try to walk each day. Even if it's a 10-minute walk to a corner store to buy a bottle of juice. Even if you go at a leisurely pace. Every action burns calories, even the ones that don't seem very strenuous, and that small change can add up quickly to help you burn fat and to gain muscle. Which, coincidentally, also burns fat simply by being there!
• Try to eat more grains. This is done most easily by switching to multi-grain bread and whole-wheat pasta. The extra roughage and fibre not only aids in digestion, but it also lasts longer in your body, keeping you feeling full longer. A definitely handy tip for people who have a tendancy to overeat.
• Chew slowly and really taste your food. It makes the meal last longer, for starters, and has the interesting effect of making you seem full sooner. The body doesn't really register how full you are for a little while, meaning that if you're just spooning food in as quick as you can, you're probably putting too much into yourself and you're eating past your limit. Eat slowly and you'll be able to detect more signs that your body's filling up, and you'll know when to stop eating much more easily than before.
• Use smaller plates. No, really. Maybe it's just generations of parental nagging to eat everything in front of you, but we have a desire to eat everything that's on our plates. Using a smaller plate allows for less food to be on it at a time, and thus we eat less while still getting that weird little psychological benefit of feeling satisfied after a good meal.
• Go out for walks with friends. Not being alone while you exercise makes the whole thing seem so much more fun, and when you're talking and laughing as you walk, the time flies and you don't even pay attention to how long or how far you've been going. Be careful, though, not to stress yourself out and hurt yourself, and remember to bring along water for hydration.
• Snack between meals, so long as they're healthy snacks. This works well for people who overeat and those who are in starvation mode. If you tend to overeat at meals, a light snack will make you less hungry at mealtime, so you'll eat less then and be able to space your food out more evenly throughout the day. If you undereat, eating healthy snacks can help you get used to eating more without feeling like you're forcing yourself to eat yet another big meal to make up your calorie count.

I definitely recommend buying the video game "My Weight Loss Coach" if you have a Nintendo DS, too. The game is filled with helpful hints and tips like these, good motivational and instructional techniques, and comes with a handy pedometre so that you can measure just how much walking you do over the course of a day. (Which, if you're competitive like me, makes it really easy to challenge yourself to beat previous records!) It's not required, of course, but I've found it very helpful for adjusting my diet and exercise habits in order to get myself eating enough, and eating enough of the right stuff.

I have a friend who's gone through one fad diet after another in an attempt to lose weight. So far, nothing's worked. She may have lost a few pounds, but quickly gained them back as soon as the diet stopped. The thing is, she'd usually stop one diet and go immediately to another.

Now, fad diets often involve you cutting certain types of foods out of your diet entirely. Don't eat carbs, they're evil. Don't eat sugars, they're evil. Don't eat starchy vegetables, they're evil. Don't eat processed foods, they're evil. Every freaking food in the world is bad for you according to some diet plan. And when she'd stop one diet and switch to another, she'd often also get sick. Physically ill. Stomach problems, stuff coming out of both ends, that sort of thing.

Why? Have you ever seen a vegetarian try to eat meat again after years of going without it? It works on the same principle. If a vegetarian's body continued to produce the enzymes needed to digest meat even when they're not ingesting any meat, it's a waste of the body's resources. So the body simply stops producing those particular digestive enzymes. But then if they put meat into themselves again, the stomach goes, "Holy crap, what the heck is this stuff?" and doesn't know how to handle it. The meat doesn't get digested properly, the food doesn't get broken down, and as a result, the person gets sick.

This will happen to anyone who starts eating something new, or something that they haven't eaten in a long time. (It's why a lot of people can't handle spicy foods very well unless they eat them all the time.) People, like my friend, will jump to a new fad diet if their current diet isn't working well enough or quickly enough for them. So they start eating what they once refused to, and the body has its spaz reaction again for a while until it readjusts, and this cycle goes on and on every time there's a new diet switch.

It's very unhealthy!

The trick, more often than not, is to cut down on portion sizes rather than cutting out certain foods. Eating less red meat can help you lose weight, for example, but there's no need to cut it out alltogether, especially if you enjoy eating it. Balance and moderation are the two key things to a successful diet.

As for diet pills, they certainly do help you lose weight, but take a look at the bottle or package to see how. More often than not diet pills contain things that block digestion, or force food through you too quickly for your body to get much benefit from it. Sure, you don't get as much fat or calories, but you also don't get vitamins and minerals, either.

Most diet pills advise you increase your water intake by a large amount to compensate for the fact that they give you nasty diarrhea! They advise taking multivitamin supplements along with the diet pills because your body won't be given the chance to absorb all it needs from the food you're eating. They tell you not to take the diet pills within a certain number of hours of any other required medication, because the medication won't stay in you long enough to be absorbed into your bloodstream and to do what it's supposed to do.

Oh sure, they do work. You will lose weight. But you'll do it at the expense of your health. You'll end up tired and malnourished. Your immune system will suffer, and you'll get sick more. Is it really worth all that, just to lose some weight? There are safer ways to do it. Slower, but infinitely safer.

Everyone deserves to have a healthy life, since a healthy life means that the time you have here is generally of a better quality. There's no reason why weight should stop you from enjoying life. If it isn't, then good for you, you've acheived what millions of people are striving toward right now. Be justifiably proud of yourself, and enjoy your life.

If it is keeping you from enjoying a healthy life, however, then take steps to change things. They don't have to be huge steps. They don't even have to be big steps. Every little step gets you closer to that goal. The important thing to remember is to keep walking, even when it gets hard, because the rewards are great and you deserve them.

And remember, I'm walking beside you, heading towards the same goal. Let's walk together.