TwoTyred

On tv last night there was a guy who weighed
something like 700+lbs and i was wondering,
how, if we can only consume 200 calories per
hour, can a person get that fat? It doesn't seem
calorically possible to consume that many calories
in a day etc.. So how can a person end up that
overweight?

Guest

Highly inactive, diet high in fat, over years and years... it's possible.

I'm at work at my fitness club, and there's a guy here who now weighs in the 220s at about 6'2". I could not believe it when he told me that when he first joined, he weighed about 350 lb, and by the time he really did join, he'd already lost 100 pounds! Amazing! He just brought me pictures today- I've been begging for pictures from him for like 2 months.

Koffee

SoonerBent

We watched that. If I remember right his normal day was something like 1 dozen eggs, a slab of bacon and a loaf of bread for breakfast. Three roasted or fried chickens with sides for lunch and 3 or 4 pizzas for dinner. Snacks in between. And he had'nt been out of bed for 5 or so years. Sad.

Also. Where does your 200 calories per hour figure come from? That's really not very much. One can go to Red Lobster, Olive Garden, etc. and put away a couple thousand calories without even trying. Even a small Weight Watchers frozen dinner is more than 200 and I can put away one of them in a couple minutes.

SS

TomM

A person can consume as many calories as they wish. Maybe you are confusing this with how many calories you should consume while exercising..

TwoTyred

i'm not real clear on the calorie thing, it's my understanding
that while riding, a person can only absorb 200 calories per
hour. Come on, i learned that here! what i don't know is if
that's all the time or only while exercising??

As for that guy--now since dead, i just don't understand
how a person can get to that extreme--any other thing,
alcohol, heroin, etc, it seems like there is a 'rock bottom'
-i don't know what the word is, but
i just don't appreciate him not being able to stop. The
nurse gives him a salad etc, and he wants a friggin'
hamburg!? "Oh, don't take my snacks".... WTF?

Could he not live--literally--for a long long long time
without ANY food? yes, he'd be miserable, but, the other
way was death. Why am i so uncompassionate--is that
a word-- i dunno, but i am.

DannoXYZ 

Well, I suspect a lot of the reasons why people let themselves go this bad is due to some psychological and emotional issues. They're already miserable...

Guest

Danno, I asked the former fat guy why he let himself get so fat. He just stared at me and said he didn't know.

For what it's worth, he didn't seem like a happy camper back then, and he was very interoverted. With his new body, plus taking classes on social interaction and belonging to the fitness club and meeting people here, all that has changed. He's like mr. happy camper.

Koffee

TwoTyred

i guess what i'm wondering, is that in some rehab places--
most...all?? Recovering persons aren't allowed booze and
illicit drugs etc.. So why was that guy--who
couldn't bend his own legs or even roll over, given the latitude
to decide his own menu?
Excuse my oversimplifications, but, strap him down and
come back in a year.
i guess we should be thankful that we aren't in such
conumdrums(sp?) ourselves.
FWIW, if i become 750#'s and go to get
treatment, i'd want treatment, not snacks
and hamburgs. Giving him a steady diet
of crystal meth would make more sense to
me....

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, classic case of depression; non-feeling apathy. It's not the same as sadness or feeling bad, depression sneaks up on you and before you know it, you're living life day after dreary boring day, not feeling anything. Basic physical pleasures bring a welcomed interruption, sexaholics, alcoholics, eataholics all seem to have a big depression component... Maybe bikeaholics too.

Wulfheir

Treatment of obesity, in my opinion, falls under 2 categories. 1) Overeating as an illness and 2) Overeating as an addiction. Views of illness and addiction are quite different. If obesity and overeating was treated as an addiction, you'd be ordered by court into a rehab centre where you follow their rules, or you are thrown out. If you treat it as an illness, it falls under health care rights. And as you know, you have the right to refuse treatment. I would have liked to have seen this guy go to a rehab-type centre where junk food was a banned substance. Instead, he probably deliberately chose a touchy-feely place that allowed his wife to facilitate his over indulgence.

I personally think his wife should have been charged with assisted suicide.

Edit: Although I don't believe assisted suicide should be illegal, under current justice system rules, this situation could warrant a charge against her. She provided the gun and the bullets, he just had to squeeze the trigger.

TwoTyred

Hey hey hey hey hey! i could quit anytime i wanted to. i'm
just waiting to wear through this set of tires and that
will be it. Unless i get a new chain, then it's only reasonable
to wait until it needs replacing, and really it's not like
other people aren't riding! You should see France at
the beginning of July, heck, there's a guy from Texas
that says it cured his cancer!!... Besides, it's not like
i'm a triathelete or anything.....

timmhaan

my question is how can he afford to lay in bed all day for 5 years eating $150 worth of food everyday! that's like a quarter of a mil. not to mention housing costs, paying for a nurse, etc. the guy would have to have some serious income to be so fat.

bmike

I'm 5'8" - blew up to 280 lbs. 6-7 years ago.

Was always athletic... weighed 165 when soccer, running, and school ruled my life.

Not sure how I got so big... thyroid played a role (as later found out) - grad school, first few jobs. It happens. I was TIRED.

Couldn't imagine going back. Trying to get to 170 or so now...

I think if I hadn't had dizzy spells that jeopardized my teaching, and a doc who realized things were amiss, I could have kept getting bigger.


And I couldn't imagine eating for 12 hours a day... and spending all that $$ on food and care!

crtreedude 

As a person who has been fat - like 70 lbs overweight - once and fought it all the time, I can tell you, if you can easily gain, you have to be on guard.

We used to have to work to get food - now it is just open mouth and insert.

Now I am at least 50 lbs under my worst - for more than 6 years, but I can tell you - it is always a decision.

You have to have a trigger point where you go "No Way, No How, No More!" or you just keep getting fatter. And we tend to tell ourselves - I am not that bad...

I guess I can either be addicted to excercise or get fat - choose one.

cooker

Actually there's a lot of really obese people who have very low caloric intake. Basically they sit or lie down all day and expend very little energy. Going on a diet doesn't help them...they have to get active.

timmhaan

does anyone know how many calories the average body uses just lying there? i'm curious to know how many calories are going in and how many are being burnt up laying in bed all day...

SoonerBent

During the interview and "at home" segments it was obvious that the guy has a lot of issues.

SS

SoonerBent

We wondered that too. The wife only talked about this or that part-time job, the duplex they live in and the mini-van she drives arent too shabby. How do they afford it? Our tax dollars at work?

SS

Albany-12303

This was on TLC right? - I think that I saw a portion of this. This family didn't seem very affluent. I was beginning to wonder how he could afford the food needed to get so fat! - then I remembered that we live in a country where a pound of pork (regular pork chops or the large hams) costs the same as a pound of apples.

Wulfheir

It's called your Basal Metabolic Rate. There is a calculator here that will give you a very rough and broad number.

timmhaan

thanks. i guessed for him (6ft and 30yrs old at 700lbs) and came up with 5137 calories. for my body type i use about 1693. interesting.

Wulfheir

I think the calculator presumes a certain percentage of fat, muscle, bone etc...
Because his weight came primarily from fat, not muscle, his caloric needs would actually be much lower, but still quite a bit above yours or mine.

TwoTyred

i imagine him sitting in a cafeteria a few tables
away, pushing around a wilted leaf of lettuce,
obviously wanting something more, and me
getting to make obtuse comments about my
meal, like:
"Wow, look at the size of that burger!"
*taking bite*
"Oh, yeah, it's the cheese that really
sets it off.."
"Mmmmmm"
*licking fingers*
"Something about how they slow
roast this ham that makes it soo
sweet."
"Have you seen the cakes they have
for dessert?"
"i might be almost full, but i'm there!"
"Oh ho ho, i gotta refill my soda!"

Yeah Baby.

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, the majority of calories consumed is to keep yourself warm and to a lesser extent, move around. Obviously if you sit all day doing nothing, your calorie requirements will go down.

Not so obvious is that the higher your body-fat percentage goes up, the less energy you need to keep yourself warm because fat is a much, much better insulator than muscle.

Then the body size reduces calorie requirements as well. The bigger and rounder you are, the less heat you shed relative to your volume because volume to surface-area ratio goes up. You only shed heat through your skin's surface-area and if your volume under that skin increases by 8x, but surface area only increases by 4x, you're much, much better at retaining heat. So... overall, that guy probably only needs 1000-1250 calories/day to maintain his body-weight, but he was eating a significant amount more than that!

kuan

Hell Elwood Blues could eat four whole fried chickens and a coke and still somersault down the church aisles.

I'm not doing too well on my weight loss. Mine's an addiction. This year I wanna ski faster and all the trails around here are anaerobic for me. Makes me real hungry afterwards.