Fat Americans.

[Winner]

Thats why I am trying to phase fast food out of my diet. At the most keep it on a once a few week basis.

You should not eat that at all.

Basically, you have to learn to eat smaller portions of healthy food more often. When you feel hunger, it is wrong, because our bodies are stupid and stockpile fat, the only thing you'd achieve by starving would be a loss of your muscles.

A lot of fruit, vegetables, no soft drinks, no fat and sweet food. Don't eat anything with fat in the evening (so no chips, pop-corn or peanuts while watching TV).

Oh, and you need to exercise more

 

[Little Corporal]

I live in San Diego (North County) right now. Maybe the prices are higher in San Fran (I know prices vary here also from market to market).

Trader's Joe's is excellent IMO. High quality stuff but unlike Whole Foods they're prices are quite decent.

I don't know about the prices in San Diego, but the Bay Area is MUCH more expensive then the LA region.
I do like Trader Joe's, lot's of good stuff there. Henry's is good too, the prices there aren't too bad and the stuff tastes good.

 

[Comraddict]

Person A can eat 1500 calories a day and be overweight while person B has perfect weight, eats 2000 calories a day and does no exercise. There's thing called metabolism.

I know a girl that eats lots of pork and bacon, and has pretty much perfect body. I haven't had bacon in years, I'm far from perfect weight.

 

[Eukaryote]

My mom is a doctor and she says you shouldn't be so hard on fat people since weight is 90% genetic anyway. (unless you have an eating disorder)
Anyway, neither she nor I are fat and we eat whatever we want. Fat people arn't any diffrent than us except they want to eat enough to make them fat.

Bottom line: It's not their fault as much as you think, and they have no less self-control than the average person.

 

[Eukaryote]

Person A can eat 1500 calories a day and be overweight while person B has perfect weight, eats 2000 calories a day and does no exercise. There's thing called metabolism.

I know a girl that eats lots of pork and bacon, and has pretty much perfect body. I haven't had bacon in years, I'm far from perfect weight.

Exactly. Metabolism makes a huge diffrence.

 

[BaneBlade]

You should not eat that at all.

Basically, you have to learn to eat smaller portions of healthy food more often. When you feel hunger, it is wrong, because our bodies are stupid and stockpile fat, the only thing you'd achieve by starving would be a loss of your muscles.

A lot of fruit, vegetables, no soft drinks, no fat and sweet food. Don't eat anything with fat in the evening (so no chips, pop-corn or peanuts while watching TV).

Oh, and you need to exercise more

Just one point:
The whole don't eat this/that/anything in the evening is a myth. recited so often that nobody notice's that not one serious study supports this message.

 

[Rhye]

Its the car culture. If you have a walk, cycle or even public transport culture people simply cannot only walk 200 yards in a day. Do the ten minute walk to the bus/ tube/ train station, do the five min walk at the other end. Hay you are walking a couple of miles every day. Then walk to the shop, five mins each way - and on the way back carring all that crap you are going to stuff yourself with? See in a normal day thats the equivalent of a half hour gym session! Not only is it free, it actually makes you money! Woot!

Car culture is bad mmkay?

This isn't the main reason.
Car culture is spread all around in Europe, but we aren't fat as Americans, especially here in Italy.

You problem is food.
1 - Your food is very unhealthy
2 - You eat too much meat. Adopt Mediterranean or Eastern cuisine instead.
2 - Your portions are XXL compared to ours
3 - You've got bad habits, as Masquerouge said:

I would also suggest really bad eating habits. I'm not talking about fad foods, but eating habits, like snacking.
I see a lot of American CONSTANTLY eating. All day long. That's not healthy.
If you restrict yourself to three meals a day, you'll see improvements.
Yes, that means no pop-corn during the movie. No Mars bar at 10:00AM. No candies during the afternoon.
But alas I fear this habit is ingrained in the way kids are raised. I was shocked to see a little baby in his troller having a huge bag of cereals for him to pick and eat. When you're raised into an "instant gratification" frame of mind, it's really hard to get out of it.

 

[Rhye]

Maybe its just because I'm 14, but I eat and I dont do exercise except when I'm forced to, and I dont get any fatter. Heck, I think I'm losing weight because maybe I'm not eating enough.

At what age does faster than average metabolism stop?

I'm not sure...
I think when you reach 20 this slowly begins to change.

I've eaten like if I were starving until 20, then in the last 5 years I've reduced a bit (but I still eat a lot) and do regular exercise (play football). And I've always kept the same weight (between 65 and 70 Kg)

Oh, maybe another factor is important: I've never eaten at McDonald's in the last 10 years. Except a couple of times when I was in Britain and I was forced to (the alternative was starving: I think I hit my all-time-low (around 62 kg) that year)

 

[The Last Conformist]

My friends that have been in America were shocked not by the sheer number of fat people, we can't really complain because statistically, Czechs aren't much better, but by the age of the fat people. In Czech rep., fat people are usually older (above 40), while young people and especially girls maintain healthy weight.

My parents had a similar reaction when visiting America in October. My mother - who's not exactly skeletal herself - remarked specifically the large numbers of fat young women.

 

[Atlas14]

My mom is a doctor and she says you shouldn't be so hard on fat people since weight is 90% genetic anyway. (unless you have an eating disorder)
Anyway, neither she nor I are fat and we eat whatever we want. Fat people arn't any diffrent than us except they want to eat enough to make them fat.

Bottom line: It's not their fault as much as you think, and they have no less self-control than the average person.

Then why are so many people in America as opposed to other regions of the world so incredibly fat?

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Yeah, health insurance is expensive and getting more so. I'm lucky. Work subsidizes so much of the cost that I only pay $80 per month. Paying for insurance yourself is like a car payment if you're healthy, and closer to a house payment if you have an existing condition. It's just going up because we are aging as a population, even though smokers (reputed to be one of the biggest reasons for the high cost of healthcare until recently) are quitting slowly but surely. The cost of managing health costs related to weight should surpass smoking shortly, but neither hold a candle to aging.

I definitely have to invest in healthcare. Might as well benefit from global trends.

 

[Whomp]

My mom is a doctor and she says you shouldn't be so hard on fat people since weight is 90% genetic anyway. (unless you have an eating disorder)
Anyway, neither she nor I are fat and we eat whatever we want. Fat people arn't any diffrent than us except they want to eat enough to make them fat.

Bottom line: It's not their fault as much as you think, and they have no less self-control than the average person.

Increased incidence of obesity in children and adolescents stems from other factors other than genetics. Including lack of physical activity, sedentary behavior, socioeconomic status, eating habits, environmental factors along with hormonal(hypothyroidism, thyroid disease) and metabolic syndromes or conditions.

The prevalence of obese individuals in the U.S. increased to 20.9 percent in 2001, a 5.6 percent increase in one year and a 74 percent increase since 1991. This is not genetic. Diet has a lot to do with this as we've seen cities like Chicago and NY ban transfats. KFC (and Wendy's has been for awhile) went to soybean oil but McDonald's still uses transfats. Fried foods and portions are a killer for obese children.

Chicago just ran their marathon. I didn't see any fat people.

 

[Gr3yL3gion]

In addition to that, stay away from your computer too. More people are spending too much time in front of theri tv sets or computers.