I think it’s clear from most of the input on here that a fundamental shift in the nations attitude and the building blocks of our lifestyles will be necessary to stop the epidemic.

It’s a complex problem due to so many factors and a challenge to fix. An example of what we can do is to scrutinise planning applications for new housing. I did this a year or so ago by noticing the proposed cycle lanes only served the new housing, I wrote to the developers and pointed out that their blurb was disingenuous and did nothing to facilitate residents cycling to school, work, doctors surgery etc etc. as no improvements were being made to the road that served the estate. It just encouraged more journeys by car.

brekkie :toast
Dinner – full roast dinner
Pudding : cinnamon roll
Snacks: couple of biscuits, some dates, apple some grapes
tea: Soup and garlic bread

Calorie intake no idea rode last night riding tomorrow – about 8 hours total i assume.

Still going to be a scale busting 67kg as i have been since adulthood

Is this virtue signalling I have no idea nor do i care

Eat better and use up the calories you do consume or just accept you like food and the consequence is a bit of extra weight, please dont constantly moan and not do anything about it.

NOT AIMED AT MOLLY TO BE VERY CLEAR

Dinner – full roast dinner

Bacon?

as full as it gets for me 😛

Nut roast obvs

So what have people done and eaten today?

Breakfast: Muesli with apple squash instead of milk. Pint of coffee.

Lunch: Whatever the cooked special is at the cafe on the industrial estate (today is was a pulled pork burger with potato wedges) + a large fruit juice, diet coke, and a Rocky Road for an afternoon snack.

Dinner: dunno yet. Possibly steak.

Evening: it’s a Thursday so I’ll be walking down to the pub for a pint or 6.

Exercise: Chuff all. I’m at work sat at a desk all day, and annoyingly I have to commute by car at the moment. I did go for a couple of mile walk at lunchtime to enjoy the sun and get some fresh air though. Step counter says I’ve only done ~6000 steps so far.

As in, look at me, look how healthy I am, I’m so much better than the fatties.

But what’s the problem with that? In the context of this thread he is better than the ‘fatties’.

TBH I think if this was a different poster you probably wouldn’t have a problem. IIRC someone called for some body images Edukator posted of himself to be removed. Smacks of jealousy to me…

Junkyard » NOT AIMED AT MOLLY TO BE VERY CLEAR

🙂

See, Molgrips, your sensitivity on the whole diet issue is becoming legendary. 😉

“and a glass of water with a lemon squeezed into it.”

Thought I’d try this as it sounded nice, but after I’d squeezed the lemon in I couldn’t get the water out 😉

nicks: “fifeandy, I have to say your post is ill-informed. You probs don’t burn all that much extra calories by cycling (humans are pretty good at adaption to exercise)”

Hmm, this sounds like bobbins to me. What evidence is there that humans can adapt to exercise such that they do not need extra calories to cycle? What do you mean by “all that much?

cinnamon girl:

I believe a large part of the reason why we’re seeing an obesity epidemic is due to endocrine disruptors as well as an increasing number of people taking multiple medications.

Is there any evidence for this? I struggle to believe that it could have any significant affect (if any at all) when the more logical reasons would be:

whitestone –
In a very short (in evolutionary terms) period we’ve gone from:

predominately physical jobs to predominantly sedentary ones
active means of transport to motorised ones
home cooked food to mass produced food
active pastimes to sedentary ones
increased labour saving devices

Why were you so positive about peoples effort on there but on here it’s “willy waving”, “virtue signalling” and negative?

Fad diets get your approval but the Mediterranean diet people having been living healthily on for centuries brings out the green-eyed monster.

Those threads were about cyclists trying to lose weight and sharing advice. How you (specifically) eat is relevant there.

This thread is about the obesity epidemic in society. How you personally eat is not relevant to this thread. But you jumped in anyway and asked other people to compare themselves to you. That makes it look like you are showing off about how healthy you are. It’s called virtue signalling.

I approve of the Mediterranean diet and general healthy eating.

How you personally eat is not relevant to this thread. But you jumped in anyway and asked other people to compare themselves to you. That makes it look like you are showing off about how healthy you are. It’s called virtue signalling.

This was so obvious I’m surprised you had to explain, especially to someone with such a username.

Should NHS entitlement carry a degree of responsibility to not be too fat? Particularly for those enormous fatties on the social.

I think that the rise of the supermarkets and ‘convenience shops’ has played a part in the increase in obesity, possibly more so than the food industry manufacturers.

40 years ago food was simply relatively more expensive and accounted for a much higher percentage of peoples’ incomes, so less money was available for food ‘treats’. Moreover, it was not so readily or easily available: no shops open after 5.00pm, or on Sunday, and fewer people had cars and so could only buy what they could carry home or to the bus stop.

Improvements in production, efficiencies of scale, and supply chain management have had both positive and negative effects: the cost of basic healthy foods and ingredients has reduced and they have become more easily and widely available (especially fruit and vegetables), but so have cakes, biscuits, sweets, snacks and ready meals with high quantities of salt, fat etc. The supermarkets have a strong vested interest in the sale of processed foods instead of ingredients: there is more added value (profit) in cakes, snacks and ready meals than in flour, sugar, raw fish/meat, vegetables and fruit, and also more scope to reduce costs/increase profits in those added value product lines. Supermarkets have also been very clever about store layout to maximise sales of those lines, e.g. sweets at the checkout to exploit children’s pester power.

There is an Asda near me where I was shocked when I first used it, because the vast majority of customers is significantly overweight (itself a problem: fat people see large numbers of other fat people around them and consider themselves normal as a result). I don’t see Asda (and its Walmart parent in the USA) or Tesco wanting to educate their customers to eat more heathily, becaue that would mean buying more basic ingredients, cooking them at home, and spending less money.

This isn’t simply a matter of poor impulse control, or people giving in to a moment of weakness and eating a packet of biscuits at one sitting: as Edukator implies, it’s premeditated because people put multiple packets in their trolly, knowing full well that they will not eat them sensibly in moderation (as opposed, say, to buying one packet of biscuits which will have to last the week).

Personally, I don’t think that a sugar tax is the answer, because I think it’s addressing a symptom more than the root causes. I also suspect it would be difficult to frame the legislation for such a tax (if you target sugary drinks, what about energy drinks? If you target all sugar, I suspect the food industry would be imaginative with identifying less than ideal substitutes which would be exempt, e.g. using fruit and artificial sweeteners).

I don’t know if Edukator is virtue signalling, but the use of that term and phrases like ‘fat shaming’ are themselves part of the problem, since they are intended to be perjorative terms to discourage people from questioning and criticising bad and unhealthy behaviour. Edukator’s diet and lifestyle sound very healthy, and the last thing we should be doing is allowing people to avoid facing up to their own poor decisions about food and lifestyle by colluding with them by using those terms.

Yes and the fact that sugary sweet things are delicious and lovely. Can’t get away from that.

Well, yes, you can. Sugary foods are only really tasty if you eat them on a regular basis. Stop consuming them even for a short period of time and I find they taste wrong, feel crap in the stomach and generally leave me feeling like shit. Same with a few food stuffs that aren’t all that good for you – stop eating them for a bit, return and you’ll put yourself off for life.

Well, it worked for me anyway. Folk lack self control, plain and simple, but will always find excuses and “science” to help explain away their inadequacy in this area. Probably because they’re sugar addicts.

Edit : I blame the 70s and the low fat diet as well as misinformation and a general dietary misunderstanding. The low fat diet was probably pushed by the sugar companies, though I have no evidence of that.

I approve of the Mediterranean diet and general healthy eating.

Progress, now you just need to do it. 😉

I’ve haven’t asked other people to compare but they can if they want, you also attributed thoughts to me I hadn’t had.

I’ve been posting on these STW diet threads for some years and the objectif remains consistent and positive. Encourage people to adopt eating patterns that allow them to maintain the lifestyle they want without fad diets, yo-yo dieting, starvation or any other excesses.

My theme on this thread is “you are what you put in your shopping trolley”. That is highly relevant because we all go shopping and we can all see what people look like and what we can see in their trolley. There’s usually a queue in my local baker’s, I play a guessing game when I’m waiting if there’s no-one I know to chat to. On the basis of their physique and dress what are they going to buy. Will it be bread, specialty bread, with a bag of croissants or even some of those wonderful patisserie creations?

cold brew, new thing for people to hate

Yeah, it sounds revolting. To my mind you could make the same thing by not using boiling water when making fresh coffee, like any sensible person. Though I’m odd with things that should be hot or cold, I can’t drink chocolate milkshakes because in my head it’s chocolate milkshake left to go cold, so I’m probably not the greatest judge,

Thought I’d try this as it sounded nice, but after I’d squeezed the lemon in I couldn’t get the water out

Well, I laughed.

Should NHS entitlement carry a degree of responsibility to not be too fat? Particularly for those enormous fatties on the social.

Where do ‘lifestyle’ health issues start and finish?

Smoking?
Alcoholism?
STD’s?

I don’t see Asda (and its Walmart parent in the USA) or Tesco wanting to educate their customers to eat more heathily, becaue that would mean buying more basic ingredients, cooking them at home, and spending less money.

Waitrose have loads of pre-prepared ingredients like stock, vegetable base etc. Even Asda have a good range of things like roast or stir fry kits that are just raw veg prepped and you just cook.

I’m presuming someone has pointed out Tam Fry works for Coca Cola and his job is to flog Coke Zero?

Is there any evidence for this? I struggle to believe that it could have any significant affect (if any at all) when the more logical reasons would be:

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-experts-european-limits-ability-endocrine.html

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/search/google-cse#gsc.q=endocrine disruptors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35111241

Those links claim that there is research backing up their claims, but obviously I don’t have the time to check this and no idea of the legitimacy of the people referred to. Could you give a brief explanation of the mechanism in which they work? i.e. These chemicals have a significant affect on the recent growth in obesity. Could they for example be used in cases of faminine/food shortage??? I am confused.

Persevere gauss1777, or get a bigger glass.

Has anyone mentioned sleep deprivation being part of the problem, as per that program on BBC last night?

I think that the rise of the supermarkets and ‘convenience shops’ has played a part in the increase in obesity, possibly more so than the food industry manufacturers.

It is not as if supermarkets are exclusive to the UK…..

I live in Germany, spend lots of time in other European countries. I’m not saying that you don’t see fat folks there, but they are much fewer and far between than in the U.K…..

Brits are generally lazy shits, choosing the car over walking or – god forbid – walking to the bus stop. They eat fat covered shit far too often; pies, fry ups, Chinese takeaways, chips etc…. all great in moderation. But far too few people indulge in moderation.

I’m laughed at by my own family for riding my bike 2 miles into town to buy shoes…. at home in Germany I wouldn’t think twice about riding 6 miles across town for a few beers with friends.

Most Brits are lazy. People drive a few hundred yards to the park to walk their shit machines….?!?!!!!

The road near the school is a frigging nightmare come 3:15 as all the mums turn up to collect their kids…

It sucks penis big time that people don’t see themselves as part of the problem. Just recently one of my cousins was complaining that it took her over an hour to cover the four miles across town to pick up her daughter due to the traffic… you are the traffic and part of the problem!!!

Tax the crap out of sugary drinks and food.
Make people pay for the privilege of driving through town centres at peak times.
Install gps boxes the penalise short car journeys….

Something draconian needs to be done as the public are too dumb and ignorant to initiate anything on their own accord…

They may all be lazy but at least they are not bitter…

Good point above about sleep deprivation.

Due to a propensity to have high blood sugar levels if not careful my daily food regime is as follows.
Breakfast consists of my own mix of multi seed high fibre porridge with half a banana chopped prunes and blueberries.
10am snack full fat Greek yogurt with some seeds and nuts.
Lunch lump of chicken and salad ( no carbs)
Tea is meat and veg ( no white rice pasta or potatoes) then nothing till next breakfast. I do eat a lot of eggs these days. No cakes or biscuits and nothing with added sugar only naturally occurring sugars. Probably eat more fat than I ever have but not hydrolysed fat or processed with sugar. Cut my carbs down to about 25% of what they where. Lost 5 stone very quickly and seem to be able to maintain it. For me it’s carbs and sugar that are the problem. You can’t exercise off a crap diet.

So it’s laziness, fast food, sugary drinks, sedentary lifestyles, cars, sleep deprivation, excess calories and what else exactly? Unfortunately for internet forum victory it’s a combination of multiple factors compounded by bad science and bad dietary advice, a lot of which seems to be constantly regurgitated here regularly.

I would advise anyone who is actually curious about understanding the process of weight gain, diet and obesity to read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes, and follow Peter Attila’s blog at http://eatingacademy.com . Take a listen to Attila’s Ted Talk if you want a summary.

There needs to be a balance struck by fatty shaming (which can make the problem worse) and the it’s all thyroid, endocrine what evers, supermarkets, big Pharmacy conspiracies and definitely not my fault stand point.

Companies produce shit because people want it and pay for it, ditto supermarkets etc. It’s not a big conspiracy.

I’ve lost a stone and half this year, how? By more careful eating and exercise, I’ve done it before and put it back on, this time I’m not following any diet, faddy or otherwise, just being more careful with what I eat and riding my bike, walking upstairs. This time I’m trying to change my attitude to healthy living through changed behaviour, I want to get away from my own self perception of being an overweight lazy slob which is what I was to one of the people who takes the stairs in a multi storey car park not the lift, someone who chose a salad in a restaurant (occaisionally) and look s forward to it arriving, had a really nice one in Giraffe the other weekend.

In short I’m trying to change how I perceive myself, it’s been hard but not as hard as following a calorie controlled diet was a few years ago. That worked well but the moment I stopped it balloon city again. We need people to accept whilst it may or may not be their fault they’re fat (in 95% of cases it is) only they can do something about it.

There needs to be a balance struck by fatty shaming (which can make the problem worse) and the it’s all thyroid, endocrine what evers, supermarkets, big Pharmacy conspiracies and definitely not my fault stand point.

Balance? How about people getting properly treated as well as optimally medicated?

stumpyjon – Member

We need people to accept whilst it may or may not be their fault they’re fat (in 95% of cases it is) only they can do something about it.

What if that’s almost impossible to do effectively, even with the best will in the world due to a massive maze of conflicting information and misinformation?

Is a person really to blame for struggling to control their weight-loss when “healthy, low fat” options are crammed with sugar, upping their insulin and increasing their fat retention?

Companies produce shit because people want it and pay for it, ditto supermarkets etc. It’s not a big conspiracy.

How about folk on low income or benefits only being able to afford ‘shit’ food cos it’s cheaper?

Companies produce shit because people want it and pay for it, ditto supermarkets etc. It’s not a big conspiracy.

Not quite. They produce shit because it is cheaper for them and a better way to make a profit. Supermarkets are then complicit by helping to promote it above fresh fruit and veg,

Not a conspiracy, just another downside of capitalism.

The UK can be quite a toxic place in comparison to other countries:
High Levels of Pollution
Regulations that favour business.
High stress to stay solvent
Strong car culture
Poor weather
Percieved levels of violence.

Its my experience though that other EU countries make more rationalle decisions in the interest of the general population rather than businesses.

at our current place of work in the canteen a bowl of porridge is £1. i can get a fry and coffee for the same price.

at our current place of work in the canteen a bowl of porridge is £1. i can get a fry and coffee for the same price.

500 gram pack of Scottish porridge oats from Sainsbury’s for 80p. Please tell the Canteen Manager to sort out their pricing!

@ wilburt – some pertinent points raised. Which EU country/countries in your opinion get it right?

Let’s not overstate the difference:

Yes, we are a bit ahead, but it’s not like this isn’t a significant problem also affecting most of the western world

I’ve skimmed over this thread so apologies if this is repeated but I spotted earlier the old chestnut ‘teach them how to live properly in school’. My understanding is that school is for formal, academic education not ‘don’t get run over/ brush your teeth’ kind of education which is a parent’s role. Teaching in a tough, socially deprived area I see the effect of neglectful parenting every day. Kids show up to school with an Apple Watch but breakfast is a bag of chocolate buttons and a lucozade. Parents equate commodity with success and love with material wealth. They don’t stop their kids eating crap all day because that would require some kind of engagement with their kids beyond buying them aspirational lifestyle tat.

Teachers, leave them kids alone, I’ve got enough to get through with Gove’s legacy of ‘teach ’em what I learned in school’ to parent them too.

I don’t think those numbers tell the whole story and nearly 10% of the population is a significant number of people.

I’m thinking of Spain and France primarily but I’ve also spent time in countries with climates more like ours Germany and Norway that both seem more people focused. Business matters but its but more consideration is given to people.

Maybe if I lived there I would see more of their irrational side.

How about folk on low income or benefits only being able to afford ‘shit’ food cos it’s cheaper?

That’s a myth. Healthy food is just as affordable, sure it won’t be organic and artisan but good healthy cheap meals are perfectly possible.