The other day I went on a hike up a mountain to a waterfall. You may remember the story about my dog having a tough time with this. After the initial push in the blazing sun, there was plenty of tree-cover and of course the presence of the water in the middle leading to the waterfall made it a pretty easy trek.
There is another part to this story outside of my dog struggling to walk 5km and to be fair, since her legs are only 5 inches long or so, this is understandable. I want to focus on another aspect of the trip and this may come across as a little mean.
There were 4 of us (and my dog) on the trip. A guy and his wife, myself, and one other person. We are all more than 40 years old so to suggest we aren't exactly spring chickens would be a fair assessment. One of the people on this trip was a relatively obese woman who i will just call Judy, even though, obviously, this is not her name.
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I didn't really expect our larger companion to do very well but I admired her for getting out of the house and having a go at it. As someone who got to the beginning stages of being a fatty I can relate to how this happens to someone but I think because I turned it around I get frustrated when I see them continue to engage in the habits that got them to this size in the first place.
On our way to the park we stopped to get some road snacks. I got a couple of take away waffles (i know, not exactly health food) and some fruit. My friend got a big bag of baked pork things and a spicy dip that it goes in. Judy, got 5 pieces of fried chicken and a big bag of fried bananas.
We were using ours as snacks for fuel on the trail but Judy consumed all of her snacks before we ever got out of the car. I don't know if you are a sports scientist, but a five piece bucket followed by half a kilo of battered and fried bananas isn't exactly what they use in the Olympics. She washed this down with 2 cans of coca cola.
I'm just going to focus on calories here:
5 pieces of fried chicken = 150 x 5 = 750 calories
2 12 oz coca cola cans = 140 x 2 = 280 calories
Fried bananas (appx 2 cups) = 330 x 2 = 660 calories
Total = 1690 calories
This is nearly the amount of calories that a person who is trying to lose weight should have in an entire day. Let's keep in mind that Judy already had breakfast before arriving although she didn't detail what that was.
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Needless to say, Judy struggled almost from the word go. She had to stop frequently and I am not faulting someone who is overweight from not being able to do sprints... or any physical activity for that matter. I will say that I find it extremely annoying that someone will tell me stories about how they are on a diet while they are shoving fried food into their face. I held my tongue because I don't want to hurt her feelings... but someone needs to. I weigh nearly 200 lbs but she is likely twice my size.
She did not finish the trail, she made it about 1.5 kilometer in and then sat down to wait for us to return. She didn't even get to see the waterfall
If you are overweight, you need to recognize that the biggest problem in your life likely ISN'T the lack of exercise. It is your diet. Some of the world's best trainers will always say that fitness is 80% diet and 20% exercise and none of them will suggest fried stuff with coca cola as anything other than a very rare indulgence.
Perhaps it seems like I am being a bit mean here, but someone needs to be mean to Judy's face or she is never going to change. I don't know her well enough to be that guy. When I got up to 106 kg about a year ago, a friend of mine who hadn't seen me in a while told me the truth.... "dude, you are fucking fat now... what happened?" I laughed it off but it stuck in my mind and later I did something about it.
I don't feel bad for Judy: She has to know what she is doing to herself and simply doesn't want to change anything. She is a nice woman but this behavior on the way to a trail hike was just disturbing to me. I'm sorry if some of you out there are fat also but unless there is some sort of hormone disorder, it is extremely likely the responsible party is the person in the mirror.