Seeing as how you work as a paramedic, I am rather surprised that you think weight gain is simply of matter of food in (be it of poor quality or large quantity). I don't think you are taking the other factors that influence weight gain into account whatsoever. As I mentioned earlier, the time in my life when I was at my heaviest was actually when I was eating less food in general and all of it was considered healthy. Of course, this period was also after I became seriously ill and was regurgitating most of what I would eat. I was keeping in far less than I was actually ingesting, yet I was gaining weight at an exponential rate. I was ballooning up when I most certainly should not have been. To add to this, I was also doing a lot more exercise than I normally would have been because it felt so much better than just laying in my bed and vomiting my guts out.
My body's chemistry had been altered by the myriad of medications I was prescribed. In addition to that, I was also undergoing a huge amount of stress due to the mysterious nature of my illness. Those are just a couple reasons why a person may gain a large amount of weight in a short period of time. Now, am I saying what you eat has no effect whatsoever on how much you weigh? Not at all. I am just pointing out that one can find themselves at a relatively large size due to things entirely outside of their control.
I feel I should further clarify. First, if I seem hostile, I do not intend to. Really. I think my tendency to respond at length adds to the perception that I'm obsessed and ranting, when in reality it is only how I speak. I also realize that I was out of line in my phrasing a number of times, and I apologize.
In my first response I did pay lip service to situations where weight gain is affected by factors other than caloric intake. Of course, there are diseases and conditions where people's metabolic rates slow down or where they may process insulin differently. Of course, when there are stressors placed on the body, the body tends to react by storing more energy as fat because it is in a sort of panic mode. And, of course, there are myriad medications that can cause increased appetite, changes in metabolism/insulin utilization, water retention, etc. Of course all of those things are factors, and when we see them, we should be concerned, because in those cases weight gain should be taken as a signal that the body is not functioning ideally.
I also want to reiterate that I do not hate fat people. But seeing people who are severely obese makes me sad. It breaks my hear to see children that are too fat to play, and it makes me sad to live in a town where poverty and ignorance cause people to make terribly unhealthy life choices. My heart goes out to these people, and I try to help where I can, but it can be frustrating, which is where much of my negative tone came from before.
But my basic point stands (excepting where very, very RARE situations may dictate otherwise): regardless of HOW our body processes the food we eat, it is the food we eat and ONLY the food we eat that provides the body with the necessary materials to create fat. If your body burns 2000 calories a day, regardless of how those calories are being burned or why they are being burned at a specific rate, then you need to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain your weight. If you instead eat 4000 calories a day, which is very easy to do if you eat fast food three times a day, then you will get fat. If your body is sick and it is slowing its metabolism for some reason and is only burning a thousand calories a day, then 2000 calories a day will cause you to gain weight. The food we eat provides the raw materials for our physiological processes, and the TYPES of food we eat often determine how well those processes operate.
While there are exceptions to the rule, this is a simple fact: If you lead a sedentary lifestyle, spending most of your time on a couch staring at a television (this is an objective observation of many people, not an assumption) and eating fatty, sugary, calorie dense foods frequently (likewise), then you will gain weight, and over a long enough time span, you will become obese. If you want to lose weight but you fail to make changes to your diet or activity level, then you will not lose weight.
All bizarre nuances aside, this is how food works. This is why if you do not control a pet's intake, for instance, it will tend to eat and eat and eat and eat, making for a very obese dog or cat. If you feed a fish constantly because you are bored and you like watching the fish eat, the fish will tend to overeat as well. Likewise with people who -- given the option of buying cheap, delicious calories and eating them whenever they feel like it because the amount of work involved in getting food is disproportionate to the amount of food being consumed -- when these people eat too much, they become fat. The difference is that people can make choices whereas animals cannot.
Of COURSE there are people who contend with weight fluctuations because of circumstances beyond their control, but we must not confuse possibilities with reality. Having a thyroid condition can make you fat, but getting fat does not always mean you have a thyroid condition, for instance. That's all I'm driving at.
So my frustration is not with the sick or those with literally no choice in what they eat (although having grown up poor you will never convince me that poor people have to eat fast food because it is cheap, because it is still possible to maintain a modicum of healthiness while avoiding fast foods and not breaking the bank), nor is it with those who are honestly trying to lose weight but failing. My frustration is with those people who make choices about what they eat while refusing to make changes and then want to be pitied or catered to because they are fat. My frustration is with the general trend in segments of America toward laziness and gluttony that is not only related to obesity, but is indicative of larger social problem wherein we want the rewards without the work, and it saddens me. It is possible to lose weight without torturing yourself. I've seen it. I've accomplished it. But you have to want to take the time to make changes.
