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"being fat is not even about overeating, as long as you put in the effort to workout to burn those calories, you can eat whatever you want and still remain in s

"being fat is not even about overeating, as long as you put in the effort to workout to burn those calories, you can eat whatever you want and still remain in shape." Do the math. It's not too difficult to snack along, have three meals a day, and end up with 6000-8000 calories. Assuming you're a big guy, you might have a 2500-calorie base metabolism, and burn maybe another (being generous) 1500 calories a day in normal movement. That means you have to exercise specifically to burn 1000-3000 calories a day. If you run for 800 calories an hour, you'll have to run for hours every day just to burn off what you're eating. It's completely impractical to try to burn as much as you could eat.

travisjeffery 17y ago
I have not once, and I am not exaggerating once seen a person who logically should be fit as they ate healthily and exercised an adequate amount and was still obese, ever. Every obese person I've ever known ate crap and didn't exercise at all. And when they tried to get thin they would either half-ass it or do the latest fad diet for 2 weeks or something and get right back to where they were later.
- mynameishere 17y ago
  You're using a lot of imprecise terms. When I was a kid, I probably packed in those 5000 calories a day, but still stayed thin. I knew fat people who ate like tiny sparrows but stayed fat. There's a strong genetic (or bacterial, or whatever) component to weight.
  - travisjeffery 17y ago
    Everyone here is using imprecise terms including you. And just because a person eats a little amount doesn't mean much, in my experience it more depends on what it is you eat. You can eat about as many buckets of broccoli and chicken as you want and stay fit compared to one who nothing but chocolate in smaller amounts or whatever (choose some unhealthy food). And also I'm sick and tired of people who rely on genetics as their problems. Go into the household of an obese family and there on their dinner table you will find tons on unhealthy foods and snacks. In each new generation of this family they grow up accustomed to eating in this manner and are obese more because of that than anything else. And when you're young you're both active and have a metabolism that's burning calories like crazy--that's what's keeping you fit. Not genetics. Also as for obese people who eat little--I knew such people, or at least I thought so. Then during each meal with one such person I noticed how little they ate. Then once during late at night I went upstairs to the kitchen to see the light on--I looked around the corner--there was this such person eating nothing but ice cream and pie; and a lot of it. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening. In the same way people can hide their drug and alcohol addictions so too can obese people hide their food addiction.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  "I have not once, and I am not exaggerating once seen a person who logically should be fit as they ate healthily and exercised an adequate amount and was still obese, ever." Well, sure. That's what "ate healthily" means, and it's how you determine that they're doing everything right: they're not obese. I'm not suggesting that there's anything involved but intake and exercise; I'm responding to the idea that you can eat as much as possible and just burn it off with a little extra exercise. That's totally not doable.
fatdog789 17y ago
How in the hell do you eat 6000 calories a day? That's the equivalent of 6 double-patty burgers, plus 3 large fries and a 3 large sodas, at most fast food restaurants. You burn roughly 10 x (your weight in pounds) calories at rest, plus an additional 10% (of that number) for each activity level (office/couch potato = 10%, moderate exercise 4 times a week/average (1 hour each session) = 20%, strenuous exercise 4 times a week/average = 30%, dedicated athlete = 40%. The percentages increase with muscle mass, but not by much. These numbers are for base calorie burn; calories actually expended through physical activity are in addition to these numbers. Hell, you'd have to be an Olympic or professional athlete to come even close to needing more than 5000 calories in a single day.
- Evgeny 17y ago
  "Hell, you'd have to be an Olympic or professional athlete to come even close to needing more than 5000 calories in a single day." Here is the short article about Michael Phelps and his diet. Supposedly he eats 12K calories per day. http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Michael-Phelps?urn=oly,100671 http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_m... An ultra-maraphon runner Dean Karnazes provided a sample diet for a day when he runs for the whole 24hrs in his book. I think it was about 26K calories. These are the extremes, of course, but not impossible.
  - rue 17y ago
    Yes, but he claimed that 6-8000 calories per day was "easy" to kind of just happen. It is not, unless the ease refers to indeed going to McDonalds three times a day plus a "snack" of french fries and a milkshake inbetween. Phelps proves a point, though: so long as one uses the calories, there is no weight gain from fat.
- kragen 17y ago
  That's only 666 grams of fat, right? That's a pound and a half of fat. If you mix that with a pound and a half of something else, you can probably keep it down, no problem. Eating three pounds of food in a day is easy. That's like a 1.5ℓ bottle of water, in volume.

travisjeffery 17y ago

I have not once, and I am not exaggerating once seen a person who logically should be fit as they ate healthily and exercised an adequate amount and was still obese, ever. Every obese person I've ever known ate crap and didn't exercise at all. And when they tried to get thin they would either half-ass it or do the latest fad diet for 2 weeks or something and get right back to where they were later.

mynameishere 17y ago
You're using a lot of imprecise terms. When I was a kid, I probably packed in those 5000 calories a day, but still stayed thin. I knew fat people who ate like tiny sparrows but stayed fat. There's a strong genetic (or bacterial, or whatever) component to weight.
- travisjeffery 17y ago
  Everyone here is using imprecise terms including you. And just because a person eats a little amount doesn't mean much, in my experience it more depends on what it is you eat. You can eat about as many buckets of broccoli and chicken as you want and stay fit compared to one who nothing but chocolate in smaller amounts or whatever (choose some unhealthy food). And also I'm sick and tired of people who rely on genetics as their problems. Go into the household of an obese family and there on their dinner table you will find tons on unhealthy foods and snacks. In each new generation of this family they grow up accustomed to eating in this manner and are obese more because of that than anything else. And when you're young you're both active and have a metabolism that's burning calories like crazy--that's what's keeping you fit. Not genetics. Also as for obese people who eat little--I knew such people, or at least I thought so. Then during each meal with one such person I noticed how little they ate. Then once during late at night I went upstairs to the kitchen to see the light on--I looked around the corner--there was this such person eating nothing but ice cream and pie; and a lot of it. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening. In the same way people can hide their drug and alcohol addictions so too can obese people hide their food addiction.
randallsquared 17y ago
"I have not once, and I am not exaggerating once seen a person who logically should be fit as they ate healthily and exercised an adequate amount and was still obese, ever." Well, sure. That's what "ate healthily" means, and it's how you determine that they're doing everything right: they're not obese. I'm not suggesting that there's anything involved but intake and exercise; I'm responding to the idea that you can eat as much as possible and just burn it off with a little extra exercise. That's totally not doable.

fatdog789 17y ago

How in the hell do you eat 6000 calories a day? That's the equivalent of 6 double-patty burgers, plus 3 large fries and a 3 large sodas, at most fast food restaurants. You burn roughly 10 x (your weight in pounds) calories at rest, plus an additional 10% (of that number) for each activity level (office/couch potato = 10%, moderate exercise 4 times a week/average (1 hour each session) = 20%, strenuous exercise 4 times a week/average = 30%, dedicated athlete = 40%. The percentages increase with muscle mass, but not by much. These numbers are for base calorie burn; calories actually expended through physical activity are in addition to these numbers. Hell, you'd have to be an Olympic or professional athlete to come even close to needing more than 5000 calories in a single day.

Evgeny 17y ago
"Hell, you'd have to be an Olympic or professional athlete to come even close to needing more than 5000 calories in a single day." Here is the short article about Michael Phelps and his diet. Supposedly he eats 12K calories per day. http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Michael-Phelps?urn=oly,100671 http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_m... An ultra-maraphon runner Dean Karnazes provided a sample diet for a day when he runs for the whole 24hrs in his book. I think it was about 26K calories. These are the extremes, of course, but not impossible.
- rue 17y ago
  Yes, but he claimed that 6-8000 calories per day was "easy" to kind of just happen. It is not, unless the ease refers to indeed going to McDonalds three times a day plus a "snack" of french fries and a milkshake inbetween. Phelps proves a point, though: so long as one uses the calories, there is no weight gain from fat.
kragen 17y ago
That's only 666 grams of fat, right? That's a pound and a half of fat. If you mix that with a pound and a half of something else, you can probably keep it down, no problem. Eating three pounds of food in a day is easy. That's like a 1.5ℓ bottle of water, in volume.