How Do We Solve a Problem Like Obesity?

[GordonS]

48 minutes ago, jamamafegan said:

 

Can I ask - is it a case that you are eating too much in the evening or is it the type of food that you’re eating? Or both?

 

It's both. I crave comfort food like chocolate and crisps but I'll try to buy myself off with toast or oatcakes & cheese. Last year we started storing the snacks under our bed so that I can't get them when my wife is asleep (and so that it's just that wee bit more effort to get something during the day). My food urges increase and my will power decreases as the night goes on, and as I can't sleep until I'm exhausted the night can be pretty long. I've always been someone that really, really likes their food but when I'm in a decent mood I can control it. Not now.

I know that eating one Cadbury's mini roll isn't going to kill me and that not eating it isn't going to make me any healthier, so too often my short-term urge to eat it will exceed my rational long-term desire to be healthy.

[Hedgecutter]

Midweek drinking is my enemy.   Had half a bottle of red wine tonight already.

If there's booze in the house then I'll almost certainly drink it within a day or two*, yet if I go offshore then I won't miss it at all for a couple of weeks.  I don't drink it because it's alcoholic, I drink it because it tastes good.

*well, beer and wine anyway.  The spirits are frequented but they're never in danger of instant demolition.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Hedgecutter

[ayrmad]

Stop propagating the myth that healthy meals are more expensive, load of shite for a large chunk of the population. 

Local shops would stock fruit and veg if folk purchased it. 

Stop building games halls etc then pricing locals out of the equation.

Stick how much excerise would be needed to burn off the calorie intake of foodstuffs on every label. 

There's loads that could be done but there's not the will from decision makers. 

Edited March 5, 2021 by ayrmad

[Steve_Wilkos]

This guy kens

[Cosmic Joe]

8 minutes ago, Steve_Wilkos said:

This guy kens
 

I think I've heard him on the subject on Radio Scotland. A deeply unpleasant individual. 

[Tight minge]

16 hours ago, Detournement said:

There is a Jollibee about every 100m in Manilla. Fillipino food is terrible compared to everywhere else I've been in Asia. 

Whether that is down to being violently colonised by the Spanish then the USA I don't know but compared to Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese or Korean it's shite. 

Red Horse beer (6.9% in 500ml bottles) on the other hand is nectar from the gods. 

 

Traditional Filipino food is excellent! 

Unfortunately it is swamped by Jollibee, Mang Inasal, McDonalds and most people never experience it. 

Food in Asia, is generally fantastic. Indonesian, Thai, Japanese, Korean and in China: Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan.

It is also mostly much more healthy than the west and you can see that in obesity tables. Particularly with South East Asian countries who have generally the least obesity. 

Read into that what you will.

Probably add the fact that westerners generally are picky on food, even to the point of texture or how it is presented. 

Red Horse, is fucking horrible. Its actually classed as a malt liquor and NOT made from the finest ingredients. Filipino Buckfast. San Mig on the other hand.

 

 

 

[hk blues]

47 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

Traditional Filipino food is excellent! 

Unfortunately it is swamped by Jollibee, Mang Inasal, McDonalds and most people never experience it. 

Food in Asia, is generally fantastic. Indonesian, Thai, Japanese, Korean and in China: Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan.

It is also mostly much more healthy than the west and you can see that in obesity tables. Particularly with South East Asian countries who have generally the least obesity. 

Read into that what you will.

Probably add the fact that westerners generally are picky on food, even to the point of texture or how it is presented. 

Red Horse, is fucking horrible. Its actually classed as a malt liquor and NOT made from the finest ingredients. Filipino Buckfast. San Mig on the other hand.

 

 

 

Agree with most of that.

I'm partial to the odd Jollibee and Mang Inasal and put them on the same level as McDos and BK etc.  Filipino food (the real stuff) may not be on the same level as Thai/Indian/Japanese but I'd say it's better than Cantonese, and Korean for example.

Obesity is more of a problem here than in much of the rest of Asia - too much rice,  sugary food and soft drinks IMO - also, they don't seem to do much exercise.

San Mig is the Dog's bollocks, whilst Red Horse is simply bollocks! (Only joking to some extent - I have a couple of bottles of it at the weekend - needs to be ice cold though)

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by hk blues

[madwullie]

9 hours ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

Haven't had a cigarette in 6 months and don't miss it, but boy are they class

I stopped smoking when my now wife got pregnant with my eldest. Not touched a joint since then either and I was an extremely heavy user. I'm still hopelessly addicted to nicotine though. 

I've done patches, gum, lozenges. I even took the pill that makes fags taste like utter shit for a fair while whose name escapes me. Now I just vape. Kind of resigned to it now tbh. So although I've not smoked a cigarette in ~9 years, I've had nicotine every day since then. 

@Cardinal Richelieu was telling me the other day that he's managed to give up his 9 year gum habit using that Alan Carr (?) self help book

Edited March 5, 2021 by madwullie

[Tight minge]

20 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Agree with most of that.

I'm partial to the odd Jollibee and Mang Inasal and put them on the same level as McDos and BK etc.  Filipino food (the real stuff) may not be on the same level as Thai/Indian/Japanese but I'd say it's better than Cantonese, and Korean for example.

Obesity is more of a problem here than in much of the rest of Asia - too much rice,  sugary food and soft drinks IMO - also, they don't seem to do much exercise.

San Mig is the Dog's bollocks, whilst Red Horse is simply bollocks! (Only joking to some extent - I have a couple of bottles of it at the weekend - needs to be ice cold though)

 

I must admit to frequenting Mang Inasal a lot when I lived there and the odd Jollibee.

I think your doing a slight disservice to the traditional food. A good adobo, sisig, sinigang, dinuguan and of course my favourite kinilaw can hold itself beside the other nations foods.

I do believe you can clearly see a coloration between obesity and food choices (availability)/fast food and sugary drinks.

You can see Filipino love of America in some of their waste lines

Some of the worst hangovers I have had have been Red Horse induced. San Mig Plisner or Dry are wonderful and if we want to watch our weight: lite.

 

[hk blues]

4 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

Some of the worst hangovers I have had have been Red Horse induced. San Mig Plisner or Dry are wonderful and if we want to watch our weight: lite.

 

The one and only time in my life when I have no memory of events was at my neighbours sari sari store with a couple of neighbours and a guy from London - we were on the Red Horse and Tanduay.  Genuinely lost 2-3 hours of that night.  Frightening to look back  on how that can happen due to the bevvy, and it wasn't even good bevvy!

You're probably right about the food, but it's a bit too rustic for my taste at times.  Adobo, sisig and of course Lechon are a match for anything but not so much onboard with some of the other stuff.  Especially the way they insist on putting cheese in fruit salad and ice cream!

[Tight minge]

9 minutes ago, hk blues said:

we were on the Red Horse and Tanduay. 

So much to comment on there, but cannot get passed this. 

You absolute Jaikey! Dundee won’t even take you back.

[hk blues]

4 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

So much to comment on there, but cannot get passed this. 

You absolute Jaikey! Dundee won’t even take you back.

We were in Dundee at the time! 

[BFTD]

7 hours ago, Steve_Wilkos said:

This guy kens
 

Did anyone ever option that Black Mirror comedy show about fatties being force-fed and hosed down in their skants?

Charlie Brooker must have had a few offers for that.

[djchapsticks]

14 hours ago, GordonS said:

Read the first couple of pages of this and am now leaping to reply. Sorry if I'm just repeating what's been said.

I'm seriously overweight. My weight has gone up in 4 stages in my life, all of them stress/ mental health related. In the 3 gaps between those times my weight came down a bit, but never to where it was before. The last 5 years have been a nightmare for my wife and I with something that should have taken no more than a year dragging on endlessly and is still not over. If systems that are supposed to work had worked it would have been resolved within weeks. HR policies and employment rights don't mean anything if its this hard to enforce them.

So it's exactly the cycle you describe. We're under a lot of stress and I'm working full time, there are no other responsible ways to get release so I eat in the evenings. It's better than drinking. I'm not sleeping well and I'm too tired after work to exercise and it hurts my back and knee anyway. Besides, walking alone in the dark is no fun at all and I fking hate gyms.

There's a lot of stress that comes with life no matter what, but the other stuff, the problems that people create through selfishness, arrogance, dishonesty, cruelty, a lack of empathy, we need to stop tolerating that. We could go a long way to fixing this through fairness at work, in benefits, in justice and in public services.

I empathise with a lot of what you say but one part I do need to mention is that there's a lot of non-impact stuff you can do that can help your back without impacting your knee. Even starting with something as simple as yoga that will slowly build strength in those affected areas without straining your body. 

I was mega heavy until 21, like really to the point of folk being worried about me. I look back on pics of then and I look fucking grey about the eyes. I made the decision one day to start in a gym and in about 16 months, dropped 8 stone to a point where I looked and felt fantastic. The weight fluctuated slightly over the years but never by a lot and I hovered there for about a decade before a really bad back injury set me back many years. 

I understand that the gym is not for everyone but I promise you, its the absolute best way for someone starting out to get exercise. I also promise you that if you speak to the right people and have them showing you the right things, your injuries will feel better, your physical health will improve and just as importantly, your mental health will get better. 

For me, I work at home, study at home (which is currently suffering for the same reasons as my exercising) , live at home and right now exercising at home just isn't hitting any of the spots for me. In my mind, you need a separate space for things like that. Somewhere you can go, somewhere that your mind gets into the mindset of 'I'm here to put in a shift'. That's harder to dissociate and do that from home.

I can say without reservation that I'm every bit looking as forward to the gyms reopening as I am the pubs and the football. 

I fully understand the rut you describe. I've been there and done it but it's a rut you must make a conscious effort to break and not lie down to mate. It can be done. The first 3 weeks are the hardest, if you break the back of the first 3 weeks in any lifestyle change, you're far more likely to stick it out. 

I hope you find the spark you're needing and shit gets better for you and your wife. 

[Cardinal Richelieu]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

I stopped smoking when my now wife got pregnant with my eldest. Not touched a joint since then either and I was an extremely heavy user. I'm still hopelessly addicted to nicotine though. 

I've done patches, gum, lozenges. I even took the pill that makes fags taste like utter shit for a fair while whose name escapes me. Now I just vape. Kind of resigned to it now tbh. So although I've not smoked a cigarette in ~9 years, I've had nicotine every day since then. 

@Cardinal Richelieu was telling me the other day that he's managed to give up his 9 year gum habit using that Alan Carr (?) self help book

Not sure how this conversation went from obesity to cigarettes, but the book itself is pretty short and nothing revolutionary. Instead of trying to shame / scare you into stopping by nagging you about how it's killing you / how much it's costing you / how stinking it is / how much of a pariah it makes you (all of which you already know), he simply turns it on its head and gets you thinking about all the benefits of smoking. Of course, there are zero benefits to smoking, so once you're in that frame of mind, quitting becomes a lot easier. 

[MONKMAN]

Smokers should definitely be shamed at any opportunity, as a result of them smelling like a blocked sewer.

[Honest_Man#1]

21 hours ago, Billy Jean King said:

Banning 500ml plus sized cans and bottles of " energy drinks" would be a start. Number of kids never mind adults you see with a can of that calorie laden shit permanently glued to their hand is unbelievable.

Only read up to page 3 but couldn’t be in more agreement with this.

Work with a guy who’s absolutely massive, and every morning he starts the day with 2 cans of Monster. Another 1 at lunch, and probably more when he goes home. If he made literally only one change and drank water instead, he would see weight drop off.

[101]

3 minutes ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

Only read up to page 3 but couldn’t be in more agreement with this.

Work with a guy who’s absolutely massive, and every morning he starts the day with 2 cans of Monster. Another 1 at lunch, and probably more when he goes home. If he made literally only one change and drank water instead, he would see weight drop off.

Do you not think he would drink 3 330ml cans? Obviously it would be more expensive and therefore generate more tax but maybe there should be some kind of threshold say 5 calories per ml you have to ditch your packaging and take on cigarette style plain packaging saying the effects of drinking this...

It's illegal for under 16s to buy them which is good but feel there is more than can be done. I've never had one but anytime I have smelt an energy drink it smelt vile.

[TheScarf]

The smoking ban has been brilliant.  Before March 2006 you'd come home from a night out stinking of fags.  The next morning you'd be rough as fuck and all you could smell was second hand smoke from your clothes you had on the night before.

[BFTD]

I work with a lassie who goes through a ton of energy drinks every day. She's skinny as a rake, but I've never seen her put anything solid in her mouth, so that might be why.

I can think of a few skinny women I've worked with in office jobs who spent the day chewing through boxes of sweeties. I presume they stay thin because that's literally all they eat. Can't imagine it's much good for their health, though.