So how fat is too fat?
NO argument about 400 lbs, how about say 250, 225, 200 etc?
If you can't care for yourself properly its a problem, what about the beer gut?
I chose 400 pounds because there is no such thing as a 400 pounder who is in shape.
You can find some freak 340 pound atheletes out there though.
I saw a story about a 300lb guy that ran 20 miles a day, biked and swam and could press 500lbs, but he still couldn't get standard life insurance rates.
I've never been able to do all that even when I was 18 and in great shape.
Of course I'm in great shape now.
Round is a shape too!
you find some seriously extreme atheletes out there.. Albert Haynesworth for example was 340 when the Titans drafted him... and the team doctors ordered him to put on fat... because they didn't think his body fat ratio was high enough!
Isn't it time for ATF? I need to work on my beer gut.
It's time for ATF.. but I'm not in the mood for it yet... I'm pissed off today.
I paid damn good money for my fat, now piss off. hehehe
Still boggles my mind that women can be pregnant and not know it. Don't they feel the baby moving? What? They just figure it was last night's enchilada talking back to them?
I found a great way to exercise---dance lessons. Cute teacher boy. Gonna salsa on Mon. night. It's all good. Next up...I'm gonna take flamenco lessons---dancing...with drama!
Also...a good round of house cleanin' and such...or a walk around the neighborhood works great too. It's the little things that add up. It's what I'm reminding myself of...
Good to know that you've shown mercy, Nate... I'd hate to come between YOUR crosshairs!!!
Well, Nate, they do have a right to be fat if they so choose. What they don't have a "right" to is me or anyone else tiptoeing around them or paying for their healthcare. When Vox and I were first married and getting insurance it drove me crazy that we got no break for going to the gym several days a week, but nonsmokers get a break.
they absolutely have a "right" to control their own lifestyle and weight.
I hope everyone realizes that my DMV suggestion was a joke. I was just pointing out that the same reasoning for helmet laws could be applied to fat folks.
I would never give the government the power to regulate such things.
But like you say... I don't have to be nice to them.
What scares me is people who actually want to enact laws against being fat. Ban McDonald's and the like. I think people can get as fat as they want, as long as they pay the consequenses and don't pass the bill along to me.
I'm blessed with a good metabolism. I'm not in shape at all, have horrible lung capacity for a non-smoker (never was a smoker), but I'm ~180lbs and 5'10. If I excercised regulurly and lifted weights, I'd easily gain more muscle wieght than I'd lose in fat weight.
Two weeks ago my wife and I and some friends were talking about this. Why not sell pills that give people tape worms. Then when they've lost enough weight, they get another pill that kills the worm. It has to be safer (and much cheaper) than gastric bipass surgery. It doesn't do much to change behavior though.
"what about the beer gut?"
The beer gut is legendary. I've seen guys down here get slapped on the back, a nod, and 'top stuff mate'.
"Isn't it time for ATF?"
I'll be waiting. I'm working on my endurance today.
Jamie R When are youing to move to NZ so you can participate in the F of ATF?
Hey, it's not that bad, I can own a gun, it's just that you have to be a part of the Sporting Shooter's Association and pay a yearly registration fee. But even then, if you keep arms concealed in private, no one will know you've got them. I've seen one or two handguns outside R&B clubs to know that most people are illegally carrying regardless. It's the laws being stacked against me when I use them in self-defence that bothers me.
EZ, there was a company many years ago that did just that. They advertised "MIRACLE DIET PILLS!!!" that would cause you to lose weight w/o exercise or changing eating habits. They really worked too. However, when analysed they were found to contain tapeworm eggs.
Jamie R,
You should have been out at the gun club with me last night. We had more small arms than some third world nations. I just love it when the guys with the full autos show up, that and the surpressors are cool. I'm thinking I need a couple surpressors.
Hahahaha, Who peed in your wheaties?
I'm going to have to make that journey one day Res. I figure you can shoot with the best of em. Great way to test my mettle.
Probably not with the BEST but I enjoy it just the same. We had a new guy show up last night who kicked major butt. He isn't even that good compared to the BEST. Its all in fun so it doesn't matter, ok it matters a little. If I was the best in the club it would matter a lot.
Res, you're a big man all right, but I wouldn't call you fat. To your face. 
And Nate, while I tend to agree with you about fat people in general, I have a little more sympathy with them. Why? Well, my mother was fat and she tried and tried to lose weight over the years but couldn't do it. Her problem was she would try to exercise but her knees were bad because she weighed so much. She didn't eat excessively, or eat bad food, she just didn't get enough exercise. The most she ever weighed, though, was 300-315, and usually was around 275.
Now, it might have ended up killing her, because she died of cancer. I figure with that much fat, there's a higher chance of cancer developing somewhere. But I don't know about that.
As for me, I've been 210-215 for over ten years now. I need more exercise and to cut sugar out, which I've been doing.
Astro,
You could call me fat to my face. You could call me alot of things. Just don't call me late to super.
I'm with you. I don't want the gov't regulating my (or anyone else's)life at that level - helmet laws, seatbelt laws, etc.
I don't mind laws regarding how you treat other people, especially your kids. IE, kids have to wear helmets, seat belts, & other protective gear. But when it comes to themselves, I think the only law that should be around is something like "Medical debt incurred as the result of an accident in which you were not wearing your seatbelt/helmet shall not be eliminated, even by bankruptcy."
I think I permanently lost my appetite for eating at buffet dining hall on campus 2 years ago when I saw a bonafide land whale carrying two completely filled trays of food (and those trays are big) for HERSELF. I've caught shit for feeling about obesity about the same as you do. I'm not quick to jump down a fat person's throat because I know fat people with genuine thyroid problems (proven with blood tests). However, even they cut back on what they ate because of that thyroid problem. One of them wouldn't eat more than 1200-1400 calories a day because of it.
It's hard to lose weight, but it's harder to live as an obese person. These people need to get a good orbital elipter. They're low impact on your knees which is how my obese father could do them and keep his weight a little bit under control (his alcoholism fucked that up). It's amazing how much a regular regimen of 45 minutes to 1 hour on one of those things can do for you if you need to lose weight.
The League of Fatties is alive and well, and living in the United States.
You got it dead on, Nate, and what really gets me is how self-centered so many of 'em are. I think it's the gravity well; the selflessness-particle (the "altruon?") cannot reach escape velocity from all the mass.
I disagree with that. I don't want ANY laws telling me how to raise my kids.
Spacebunny,
As usual, I agree with everything you've said here except... (this is the unusual disagreement):
When Vox and I were first married and getting insurance it drove me crazy that we got no break for going to the gym several days a week, but nonsmokers get a break.
Nonsmokers don't get a break, smokers get penalized. That's a big difference. As a smoker, I don't have a huge problem with that. I do wonder, though, why so many other unhealthy things are not so harshly penalized by the actuaries.
I think the answer to your question is that going to the gym means little as an isolated lifestyle habit. I know you and Vox at least well enough to know that you both know what you're doing and why you're there. But there's no effective way for the insurance company to measure how much your gym visits matter. They pay people a lot of money to analyze statistics and create actuarial tables (that maximize their odds in the craps game they're playing). Gym visits are not statistically significant.
Muscular (or even cardio) fitness alone != healthy. Reference Jim Fixx or Bruce Lee for further details.
And as far as lifetsyle choices, for life insurance at least, many insurers will "write out" your dangerous hobbies--for instance, if you like to go skydiving, SCUBA diving, or auto racing. You can pick up policies that will cover those, but only for mucho dinero.
Spacebunny, I hate to go reducto ad absurdum on you, but I suppose child abuse laws are OK in that they cover assault & other things that are wrong anyway? I guess my beef with seat belt laws is that one's children should not be the victim of one's own stupidity. Let them autodarwinate themselves, don't do it for them.
Oh, and as far as the stinking goes, I may weigh 300 lbs, but I do make sure that every bit of me gets cleaned in daily showers. Not everyone who's fat stinks for that reason.
Seriously dc, the fact that some people exercise regularly and still die young(er) is your big argument? You've got to be kidding me. Obesity - in the form of heart disease and other ailments is one of the leading causes of death. If you go the the gym regularly you are demonstrably more likely to live longer. Your point about smokers paying a penatly is well taken, but the it comes out to basically the same thing. Not to mention that while that may be their reasoning, when we first got out insurance it was not explained to US that way.
Ibreakcellphones - yes, child abuse laws are merely an extension of assault laws although if anyone I knew was abusing their children they would not likely make a court appearance. As to the carseats - I'm all for them, I think they are great. HOWEVER, practically every person who posts here (well over say 30 or so) made it through childhood without them OR bike helmets.
BR and ZR will not wear bicycle helmets when they learn to ride.
I am trying to start them young on the civil disobedience.
That being said I will also teach them how to take a tumble, how to be careful and the inherent risks and possible outcomes of taking that bike off that ramp after coming down "Devil's Backbone" going 20 mph.
"If you go the the gym regularly you are demonstrably more likely to live longer."
Heh, not if you have seen some of the idiots I've seen working out... which I am sure you both have seen your share of.
Hmm, you don't need a spot on 450, after you just got done doing two sets of 350. Nah, sure you'll be fine.
*crunch*
Ahhh, nice sternum, want that spot now?
Seriously dc, the fact that some people exercise regularly and still die young(er) is your big argument?
It's not a "big argument," but it's certainly a statistically valid point. I backed it up with an example of each kind of "physical fitness."
Jim Fixx was considered an expert on the subject. He wrote a book on jogging for cardio-vascular fitness and then died young of a heart attack.
While jogging.
George Burns smoked a half dozen cigars and drank a quart of vodka every day for over 60 years and lived to be a hundred.
Jim said the secret to long life was exercise. George said it was laughter.
I know it's anecdotal and not evidence. I'm just saying, challenge your assumptions.
dc - it's not an "assumption" that people who exercise are healthier - it's a provable fact. Just like smoking causes lung cancer, but not in everyone. Jim Fixx had underlying, undetected heart problems, his dying young doesn't make him wrong.
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