f13.net

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/15/cops-400-pound-shoplifter-busted-when-her-motorized-cart-got-st/

I don't even... what the...  :ye_gods:

The best part is how aggressive she was when caught. It made me think of a whale that thought it knew kung fu.

Oh. Been done. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_(Street_Fighter))

I'm really sad that there is no video.

Speeded up, with yakkity sax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVS3QqrXhD8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVS3QqrXhD8)

It definitely does make everything funnier. 

While purely fucked up, the stories that keep getting linked from that one just keep getting weirder and weirder. The next one (http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/15/cops-man-steals-motorized-shopping-cart-tries-to-escape-with-m/) is a dude steals meat, runs over a 4yr old, and when confronted by police at a nearby gas station, the criminal challenges the officer to fisticuffs....pure awesome. Which then leads to a horse-and-buggy Amish teenager chase and arrest or a Florida man trying to run away in a lawn mower that tops out at 8mph. It's like choose your own adventure....smoking gun style.

The part that has me baffled most of all is that the cops used a taser to pacify her.

Really??

The cops needed a taser to deal with an unarmed 400 lb woman who can't walk??

I guess making a run for it was out of the question. Americans are now too lazy to properly steal, we have to use a Rascal.

This was my favorite part:


Several parts of this are hilarious. First, I want to know exactly what insults she hurled at the cops. Please tell me she called them "fucking pigs" for the unintentional awesome. Two, how does one assume a fighting stance when you can't stand? It's part of the word right there. I mean I can sit in my office chair and shake my fist at someone standing in the doorway, but at best that just makes me a dick. Third, you just knew when the cops claimed she was going for a fighting stance that she was getting tazed. I saw those words and thought to myself, "Oh please let them have tazed this whaOH YEAH!"

I'd venture to think she could stand when she had to and was probably outta the seat when the doors jammed her in between them. Motorized carts aren't just for paraplegics. When I worked LP for a PI agency in California, I worked grocery primarily - plain clothes watchers. First time I saw some woman stuffing a shit load of baby formula in her kid's stroller, I had to take a double take and get my partner on it. People use all sorts of shit to get away with anything. Worst offenders, and this probably still holds true, are elderly - who would suspect grandma stealing OTC meds? Oh yeah, those were cake walk busts. This woman, or any human 400+ lbs. No thanks. Take the shrink hit and put her pic up in the LP office and bar her at the gates.


Of course, the cop tasering would the icing on the proverbial cake though.

Odds are she didn't budge from the scooter and if she did, I'm going to say they took bets on the collateral damage from the fall.

I do always like seeing how the stores are providing Rascals for the ludicrously fat. I have the feeling they were for the elderly, just like those commericials you see on daytime TV with grandma rolling around her house to hug her grandkids. When's the last time you saw someone older using a Rascal? It's usually a fat chick.

I'm always amazed that someone could eat themselves beyond 300 pounds and not think that maybe they should do something about that.

250# is what always got me at that point you begin noticing all built objects say it won't support your weight.   For instance, my ladders all say "max load 250#"  It's what got me to drop almost 15# over the last year and I was only 245 at my heaviest.

I want to gain weight and never can. I always wonder how people find enough time in the day to eat enough to get that big. Do their days just consist of going to the store, cooking and eating?

Cooking?

I guess you could say she could blob them to death.

 :drill: :why_so_serious:

Classic...

Back on point, weight loss is enormously hard for some people and especially in this society with the now now now mentality. 6 weeks before you start seeing results is way too far to climb (or drive your scooter).

6 weeks? Hell in 6 weeks people on the Biggest Loser have lost 100 pounds or more. Extreme, but if you're fat you should see pounds coming off in the first week.

People are just lazy. I'll fully admit when I gain weight it's simply because I'm not getting off my ass and not cooking for myself.

The ones at my store in high school were obviously for the elderly.  It had trouble going up the incline to the store when I had to return it (me being all of 150lbs), so I had to drive it with one hand and use the other hand to hold the seat interlock down.  I bet the thing would just die if a bigger person used it...

Or maybe it got that way somehow...  :oh_i_see:

Well I am shocked! Shocked I tell you! Yes, shocked and offended at how insensitive you are being!



No, not really.  :grin:

Everyone's different but mine was a combination of thing over about 12-15 years.

1) After 25 beers and sodas being my primary drinks started putting weight on me.
2) I've had various desk jobs that required me to stay seated 8+ hours a day for the last 18 years, starting with Coops in college.  Even standing around for 10 mins instead of at a computer meant getting a talking-to at times.   
3) Lack of after-work activities.  The internet chatrooms, MUDs & computer gaming as hobbies meant even more time sitting around for hours at a stretch. 
4)  Did I mention the soda?  Until the last 2 1/2 years I'd average about 3 20oz sodas a day.  (Not just bottles, you have to figure in the super-sized cups at lunch.)
5)  Eating out with co-workers or friends in college was always fast-food.  During co-op quarters that was a daily occurrence.   Eating out once I got a full-time job was still fast food often, but also introduced other restaurants who had better food but bigger portions.  It's hard to break the "clean your plate" habit you were raised with. 
6) I've got a killer sweet tooth.  I'll almost always have gum, chocolate or hard candies around to satisfy it.  If I don't there's usually a candy dish somewhere in the office to filch "just a piece" from.

Looking back over all that I'm amazed I didn't put on more than the 65# I did from when I was only 7% body fat and swimming over 5 miles daily.   Give the above a shot and I'm sure you'll begin putting on the weight, too.  If it doesn't start working immediately, toss in 2-3 of the 'weight gain' powder shakes you can get from the fitness stores as well.

BJ Brewhouse's Pazookies will do it right quick too.

Yes, you can get fat over time. Hell you can get really fat over time.

There's still no excuse for being 400 pounds and trying to rob a store on a scooter.

I eat chocolate and other various gummy candies on a daily basis. I also chew gum constantly, as I quit smoking and I need SOMETHING to keep my oral fixation in check, eating plastics pens is less than good for you. I drink 1.5l bottles of Coca-cola at a time. I will go through two or three bottles in a day if money allows it/the wife doesn't notice and stop me. I've never had a desk job, but I've had unemployment for months/years at a time where I basically went into a coma playing various MMO's I could get my hands on. During those times I had access to the 2l bottles in the States, and would drink 2 of those a day. Hooray for .99 2l bottles.

So I dunno. Metabolism? It boggle me. The things people say make you gain weight do NOTHING to me, and it's infuriating. And I already do protein shakes and whatnot. Have on and off for years. Most I ever gained was in sheer muscle mass while I was serving in Afghanistan.

I blame post Afghan syndrome.

Too easy. :grin:

As to gaining weight, some people are just naturally lanky. I used to be lanky as all hell, but then I got a job and stopped biking everywhere and preferred to drive/take the bus, and I went up around 15-20kg. For some reason it just stopped there. vOv

Perhaps they really like the smell of frying bacon?

While a lot of times it has to do with lazyness, there are times when it is much more complicated.  My gf and I decided to do something about our weight gain, so we joined a gym and have gone every day for the last 26 days.  We eat almost the same, we grill or cook healthy recipes for dinners and have the leftovers for lunch, only have eaten out 3-4 times, and haven't had any alcohol.  If anything I end up cheating and eating more than her, but nothing crazy (jello for desserts, once and a while take a chocolate out of the bowl at work, etc..).

The first week we both lost 4-5lbs.  Now I'm losing again and down an average of 2lbs a week while she's up 6lbs somehow and over her starting weight.  Obviously, there is either some small thing that I am doing that she's not, or her body needs to do something different, but either way we aren't sure why.  Sometimes It's a lot more complicated than "people are lazy"

Though I am sure in regards to the woman in the article, it is because she's lazy, and stupid. 

How old ar you Vaiti?
At 17 I was drinking two to three litres of Coke a day and pretty much constantly snacked on junkfood. I weighed 129 lbs. From about 23 to 29 I weighed 139. At about 30 I got an IT job. By 35 I was up to 176 lbs (on a very thin frame). Now at 39, I have to watch what I eat to stay under 160. Metabolism makes a difference, but it changes as you age. Ultimately though, you have to settle on the fact that your frame will only hold so much mass properly distributed. You don't want to gain weight that is nothing but a gut and moobs.

Yeah, desk jobs with no extra time to step away from your desk once and awhile can really add pounds. For the longest time I would hover around 115-120 and now I'm trying to keep myself under 130. Mostly because I know it's not muscle, but plain old fat.

I'm 28 at the moment, what you're saying sounds about right. I've been going the gym fairly often nowdays, so my recent weight gains I haven't been attributing to my school/work/home time, all of which consist of long hours of sitting down. About two years ago prior to getting back into actually working out and doing something other than just the snacking and sitting about I was at (hooooolllly shiiiiiit, I just converted this and didn't realize I was that tiny) 127 pounds, which was the lowest I've ever been that I can recall. Before that, at the tender age of 18 I was 133 pounds before joining the military, maxed at 197 pounds around age 20, then dropped steadily after service. Nowdays I'm creeping back up at 163 pounds, but I still look like a skeleton and can't for the life of me put any bulk on, especially on my shoulders.

A friend and co-worker of mine has/had the skinny guy thing going forever as well, then suddenly at the age of 33 he developed a pot belly while remaining skinny.

Get ready.

Give it two years.  From 30, to 35 I went from 175#, and looking like a twig, to 275#, and not so twig-like.  A kid, a crappy diet, and little, or no, exercise will do it.  Don't even have to eat that much, really.

Weighed 140 in high school, got my weight up to 180 after college with some illicit help :), now I am back to 148ish @ 37yo. My mother has only now starting putting on weight @ 62 yo...so metabolism helps a lot...or hurts a lot.  :awesome_for_real:

I'm 29, I think my Metabolism has remained steady, just a shitty, shitty diet and exercise routine most of my life. When I was fully grown I considered 180 normal, but there was a point I said fuck it and ate whatever I wanted and rocketed up to 240. Then managed to work my way down to 210, 190, and finally sitting pretty in the 180-190 range but some of that is muscle I've managed to pack on. I look lean though I'm soft in places, and I'd like to do more to get rid of the softness, but I also know that my lifestyle (computers) isn't conducive to dropping weight. Hence why I've been going out more and mixing up my day with things like push-ups and running.

If I made it down to 175 I would be ecstatic. I'd probably be there or more if it weren't for the muscle I've put on.

Until I was about 32 I was the skinniest fucker you'd ever see. I'm 6' tall and weighed around 8 stone with a 26" waist. From 32-35 I basically ballooned out to where I am now at around 14 stone with a 34" waist. During my rake thin years I ate all kinds of rubbish, had a ridiculously sweet tooth and didn't do any regular exercise beyond daily living stuff (walking to work etc) and never gained an ounce, now I eat carefully, go to a gym regularly and I can't shed any weight at all.

Someday, somebody is going to invent something that can make our metabolisms run at high speed all the time, and we can all be lazy, skinny, and happy!

Oh, and as to the question about why this person needed to be tasered:  Its hard to fucking stop them.  Friend of mine works as a security guard at Safeways as a side job.  He's been routinely attacked (beaten and bitten) by various different 400 pound black women trying to shop lift.  It usually takes several people to take one of them down, with them being violent as fuck the entire way down.  After she threw the first punch I'd have shot her in the face with a taser as well.

A bitch with momentum is a bitch?

Consider the weight of an arm on a 400# individual.  She's obviously strong enough to lift it and Force=Mass*Accelration, so... yeah they'll fuck you up.

Fat people can be EXTREMELY strong. It takes serious muscle to carry 400 pounds any distance and they also generally have a lot of spare sugars in their blood that can be turned to energy on a moments notice. The may not have a lot of stamina but you don't wanna get into a wrestling match with one.

Metabolism helps.  When I was younger I could eat anything and it wouldn't stick.  Portions matter, too.  Eat twice what you do now and you'll likely put on weight.

For myself, at the beginning of the year I stopped drinking soda after getting my wisdom teeth out.  I've already dropped ten pounds.

If I move away from lots of beer to a steady diet of Bourbon, do you think that would help me drop off some pounds?

Just to add to the consensus, when I was in high school  I resembled a concentration camp victim. Skeletal to the point that my mother often had to defend herself. I weighed around 110 or so when I graduated high school. I ate pretty much anything I wanted included whole pizzas at a sitting and huge amounts of caffiene. I never gained a pound. I was put on a high calorie diet by a nutrionist "No, really, go to McDonald's and get a chocolate shake at least once a day. Please..."

Now I'm 39 and currently hovering around 190. I eat a very small breakfast, skip or eat a light lunch and usually soup or a lean cuisine for dinner. The only sodas I drink are diet and I try to drink water.

It's all about the metabolism. Well, and in my case, getting put on prednisone for a decade or so but it only made my slowing metabolism worse.

Not really unless you are drinking dark beers:

110 calories in a light domestic beer
97.5 in a shot of whiskey

At one a day for 365 days You'll lose 2.5 pounds.

If it's a switch from darker beers, then yes, you'll lose 11 pounds.

That radically changes once you add a mixer to it, though. 

:mob:

I personally drank scotch and sodas when I was cutting calories back in the drinking days.

Your eating habits are probably why.  You probably have to eat more to make your body stop storing everything it gets.  if you dont' eat enough, your body things you are starving and thus tries to store everything it gets.  Skipping meals has the same effect, because if your body doesn't know when it's going to get food next, it stores it instead of trying to metabolize it.

It's recommended to eat 6 times a day, not 6 big meals (an apple can count as one of the in-between meals), but you are supposed to keep hydrated and eat enough to keep your metabolism going.

That 250 limit on shit sucks. I weigh 280 (which is somewhat below my max). I think my healthiest "post-high school weight" (I don't count that skinny, zillion miles an hour metabolism as healthy) was like 220. Consider I could see abs, although they weren't super defined, and had a 33 waist at 6 foot tall, I figured that was pretty healthy.

(I could also handle an hour long aerobic workout 3xweek, so yeah).

So I'm way over that now, and I'd like to get back down there. Now that my stupid foot is fixed, maybe I'll get off my ass and start walking or something. If I can hold at 280 with a "sit on my ass 8 hours a day" job and no exercise, putting in some time on a treadmill can't hurt.

Switching from dark beer to *cough* _{dealcoholized} beer at home actually made a huge difference for me. I mainly did it because I was drinking too much, but at half the calories it made a big weight difference as well. Amazingly, I've actually grown used to the taste. Only drink real beer when I go out now.

I am reminded that it's better for me to shoot Vodka than drink beer to get drunk...

And if you're poor, just buy Popov and run it through a Brita pitcher.  :grin:

Oh wow. O_O

Muscle weighs more than fat. Your GF is gaining muscle from the gym.

3 times more from what a health nut guy told me once.

And it's all the more reason that people need to stop using scales as a measurement of progress.  Use the mirror.  Use the measuring tapes.  Use how much you can lift or how long you can run/walk/step.  Use how you feel.

(this from a guy who is obsessed with scales, but whatever)

And (because, hey why not mention it again) the reason BMI is bullshit.  BULLSHIT.

Nebu had the best story about it.  He has a 6 pack and his doctor told him he had to lose weight because the BMI chart said he was fat. Heh.

Google dnp (yeah, not quite what you meant but not a million miles away). Also fat people are very strong, interesting thing about reading the SA exercise subforum is all the 300lb nerds losing weight lifting weights that end up being able to squat enormous weights because their legs were already lifting so much.
As for the metabolism thing, women have a harder time shifting fat than men, if Kal and his girlfriend are eating about the same then he'll be losing weight faster. If her weight is going up though there's a good chance she's gaining muscle but not losing much or any fat. She'll probably be looking better and generally healthier though, which is kind of the whole idea. The other thing to bear in mind is that the two most important things with diet are 1) Calorie totals and 2) Macronutrient (carb, protein, fat) split. Eating lots of small meals can be very helpful for people who find they get hungry very easily but I don't think there's much evidence it has any effect beyond that. What that split would be ends up really depending on what you want to be doing and how your body responds to it so someone looking to lift a lot of weight and get big could be minimising carbs and munching down chicken breasts and protein shakes. If you're planning on running a marathon though that diet would probably seriously damage your performance as well as leaving you feeling crappy due to lack of easily available energy.

I can see why people end up getting fat and I don't think there's a single simple fix. Frankly it's a combination of it being easier to eat crappy food, exercise being regarded as something that's difficult and people being genuinely ignorant about healthy eating. It's the kind of thing I think government really should be involved in and back in the early 20th century it was something lots of governments did, most famously Germany but getting people to go to morning exercise clubs and building public pools was something going on around Europe. The UK experienced one of the healthiest periods as a nation when the government took control of people's food shopping and spent lots of time and money promoting healthy eating and exercise back in the 40's and 50's even though that kind of thing would be seen as 'ridiculous nanny statism' nowadays. Frankly I think obesity levels have proved most of the country needs a fucking nanny state to keep prodding them to go for a run or have a swim and that maybe they should replace that apple pie with a salad. Putting a serious clamp down on junk food advertising would be a big help as well and a better system of taxation and assistance for food produce aimed at getting rid of cheap and unhealthy crap while trying to make healthy eating affordable and accessible would also help a lot.

Some of the reasoning behind the "6 meals a day" concept are that a) it keeps your metabolism running at a more constant rate, and b) because your body can only deal with so many calories at a time.

That second one is really, really important, and very few people know it.  Depending on your body (we're all different), you may only be geared to deal with around 600 calories in a setting, max.  So that 1200 calorie burrito you just ate?  Your body might make use of half of it.  The other half either gets shit out, or goes straight to fat storage.  It gets even worse when the first factor is also adding to the issue...if you're skipping breakfast, having a small lunch and eating a gigantic dinner?  You're just asking to be fat.

Another thing, and I hate to be that guy:  Most of you people in the gym?  You're doing it wrong.  Most of you are wasting your time.  90% of the people I see, whether it's weights or cardio (but especially the weights) are clueless.  In my observation, women tend to be the worst offenders.  I genuinely think that people don't understand what they are doing when they are working out. 

Care to elaborate?

As for the "when you eat" thing, it may play a role at 2500 calories, but if you only are eating 1500 or 1800 calories your body will adapt to however you eat it. 

Where to start?

- People wandering aimlessly, from one machine to the next, no real plan.  Do one wimpy little set, saunter off to the next shiny piece of equipment and do another worthless set.
- Complete lack of challenge when lifting weights.  Most people (especially those using the machines) aren't putting nearly enough weight on.
- Complete lack of challenge on their cardio equipment.  They might be sweating, but that's only because they are warm.  They aren't going nearly fast enough and/or don't have nearly enough resistance on them.  Not even remotely close.  It'll take them 1.5 hours to burn any significant calories, and they give up long before then.
- No clear idea as to what they are trying to achieve.  These are the guys who do curls and/or bench presses every day.  Or the women who do all the leg extensions and hip abductions every day.  Not surprisingly, then never appear to make progress.

And in general....if what you are doing isn't very (perhaps extremely) uncomfortable, then you should probably be working harder.  Most the people at the gym I see are very, very comfortable.

Most people in the gym could achieve the same results by eating better, walking more, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator.  I agree with you that most people in the gym are wasting their time from a "workout" standpoint, but at least they're doing something.  It's better than being on the couch with a bag of chips.

It all depends on their expectations. If they go into with the idea of just doing something and not caring about the result, while still going all the time, that's fine. If they get disappointed because they didn't lose 10 pounds that month and only lost 2, that's not.

I know, and for some reason that frustrates me even more.  It's like, you're practically going through all the motions, why not do it right?

I don't know why it bothers me, but it does (especially when they have personal trainers who let them get away with that shit).  I mean, it just makes me look more awesome and superior by comparison   :grin:

Having just come back from the gym I chuckled reading Cyrrex's post because I had similar thoughts the entire time I was there.   I saw at least 4 different women hop on the pec machine and only do one set of 10 with 10-20# of weight.  They pounded those 10 out in a good 5-10 seconds each. 

I'm no Hercules and some of you would laugh at my weight, but at least I know that if there's no strain you're not doing anything at all.  You see the same thing on the leg press, the crunch machine, the shoulder press.   Lots of very small weights for very few repetitions.

As for the treadmills/ ellipticals/ etc not doing enough resistance or speed;  I blame the machine more often than not.  I set all of them to do "fat burn" when I'm on them.  The ones at my gym have cardio sensors and for a guy of 36 they want my heart rate to only be 130 for only 20 mins.   I manually set my heart rate to 145-150 for 30-45 mins and even at that setting it rarely adjusts me above level "2".

It doesn't matter how much weight you can lift.  I'll laugh at the guy who is easily putting up 150, not the guy struggling with 100.  It's the second guy who is going to make progress.*

There's an old adage that I just made up right here on the spot.  Don't do what the strong, buff guy is doing.  Copy the guy who is making progress.

*I'm not talking about warm-up sets or body building principles that call for lighter weights.  Talking about the guy who is a puss.

This takes a bit to hammer into the psyche though. Every guy wants to go throw the 45 plates on each side of the bench bar and throw it up like nothing - that is for the style guys that do nothing in the gym. When I started lifting way way back in college, I lifted with a female basketball player who always had more weight on any bar we were working through. Took a leap of faith to work with her in the gym full of guys and to lift "less" than her, but in a few months I was right where I wanted to be. Too many people use the gym as some measuring stick between others in the gym rather than one to be used on your old-self.

There is a very clear benefit for cardiovascular health with even walking briskly, so maybe some of these folks just don't have the same goals for going to the gym.  I would think that even more damning would be the ones that drop off after six months and just quit going altogether, e.g. me.  Of course I've got small kiddos that don't sleep so I have an excuse. :grin: 

Some use the measuring stick as a form of motivation, not as a contest.  Besides, I'm more impressed by the guys that can do 10 wide grip pull ups than I am the guy benching 225. 

My personal favorite: The guy that swings his curls up so that he can use bigger dumbbells.  Always gets a chuckle.

Man, I fucking wish I could do just one pull up.  Even at my fittest and leanest I've never been able to do a proper one.

On the other hand I was able to squat 300# at one point when I weighed 180.   All my power's in my torso and legs, my arms are shit.

Pull ups are my super power.  I've always been able to do tons of them, independent of how in-shape I am.  I'm sure it helps that the most I've ever weighed is 145lbs.

I've found the best way to keep your weight down: get stomach flu 3 times in a 4 month period.  Works wonders.

I doubt that.  While I know that muscle weighs more than fat, the fact that she's 5'8" and 215lbs and most of our workouts at the gym are cardio tell me she's not really gaining that much muscle to compensate for any weight loss.  Considering I weigh almost the same at 5'10" and yet I am averaging 2lbs a week, I would be very surprised if she was gaining more muscle than I am, or I am just losing that much more fat than she is.

Way back when, when I actually went to the gym, it was all about cardio. Was too fricking boring to sit on a bike or stairclimber for an hour, so I got in to the circuit training. Machine to machine, short light weight sets on each, interspersed with manual stair climbing. You looked like a wuss with the low weight, but I could keep a high heartrate continuously, while shifting the focus from body part to body part. I have no idea how effective it actually was, but it was less boring, and felt good.

Now, I'm a lazy desk jockey. I do still walk up about five flights of stairs each day  :awesome_for_real:

It's a tough call.  I can be 205 lbs at 6% body fat and 175 lbs at 6% body fat.  It's all about the type of workout.  Some women gain bulk better than others.  We call them Eastern Europeans.   :why_so_serious:

(http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/000/624/489/egerman_display_image.jpg?1294650809)

???

Also, the biggest barrier to losing weight may be her diet.  Most people who claim to be working their asses off at the gym AND who are on a strict diet but are failing to lose weight?  They are lying about one of those two things, and it's probably the diet.  The good news is that it's actually extremely easy to lose a lot of weight by dieting properly.  There's only one major hurdle, and it's the same one that the people in the gym have trouble overcoming:  It's fucking uncomfortable.

To echo what some of the others have said...the body weight stuff is what's really impressive.  Not just about pull ups and stuff (I actually find that there are even fewer people that can do a good number of body weight dips...people suck at dips), but just how much you can lift as a percentage of your body weight.  Benching 225 isn't all that impressive when you weight 225.  But it is if you weigh 180 (or whatever).  

Okay another common problem. Now that you are going to the gym and working out has she added Gatorade or such to her diet and daily intake?
Reason I ask is I was shocked to find out most drink supplements contain more calories than you actually burn while running or working out, so you are just upping your daily caloric intake.

And exercising has been shown in a recent study to be a lousy way of losing weight (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html), if that was your goal. 

Now I wish I had brown fat. Thanks Time article.

And if you find your dips/pull-ups are getting too easy, don't add more weight. Switch to gymnast's rings. Oh god, does that make body-weight exercise harder - all your supporting muscles have to go into overdrive just to keep you stable throughout the exercise. On dips, I'm up to an average of 7 or 8 on the rings, and I think I'm doing pretty well. Tough stuff.

And really, exercise is just a partial substitute for a highly active lifestyle. I was back home recently and was having a few beers with friends; one of them commented that he was surprised to see me in such good shape and still putting away a goodly number of beers. He was less surprised (and more horrified) when I rattled off my weekly schedule, which includes precisely zero nights per week of "do nothing more challenging than sitting on your ass", so I think the point got across.

Brown fat is cool.  If you had brown fat you could be a whale. 

This is the thing - I can pack away most anything I care to eat, and/or anything I care to drink - presuming I keep active.  I catass on ($mmog) for a week or so, and the pants start getting tight.

That's one good piece of advice my GP gave me a score of years ago - "When you get to your target weight, buy a pair of pants that just fits you.  When they start getting tight, it's time to step back and take a look at what you're doing."  And it's worked most every time.

I'm not quite down to where I want to be but buying a 30 waist and fitting into it was awesome, first time since I was about 14 I've been able to do that. The annoying thing is my suits no longer fit in any way and since I'm not quite down to where I want to be I really don't want to splash out on nice new ones. I also don't really need to wear them (much as I like to) so can't really justify buying cheap but fitting suits in the interim.

Also there are people that find dips harder than pull ups? I can now bang out a couple of sets of 8-10 dips but still barely manage 2 sets of 3 pull ups. I also found having an actual weight lifting routine someone with knowledge and experience put together is much, much better than trying to just do stuff.

Well, it could also be that there just aren't as many people doing the dips (it's not one of the sexy exercises), and those that do them are not capable of doing them at full weight (or doing them right).  Also, the big, buff dudes who are throwing up a bunch of weight on the bench often struggle with their own body weight and can't do either dips or pull-ups without cheating, so naturally they avoid them completely so as not to look foolish.

Strength relative to size...that's what counts most.  I expect the big fat sorta muscular guy to bench 250.  The lean, 140 pound high school kid benching 185 is actually quite a bit more impressive.

Yall are taking a thread about a fat chick getting tazed and turning it into some meatheads standing around in the gym talking about cutting.

Yall suck.

There's only so much you can talk about fat chicks getting tazered before it gets old.

Now, provide a video of the tazing and it'll improve things for a while... :grin:

enough diet talk, I think the story is hilarious.  The idea of someone trying to *flee the scene* in one of those battery powered carts just has me giggling like mad.

And to all the 20 somethings just wait til you hit your mid/late 30s, it takes a fuckload more effort and thought to keep slim. 

Echoing this. The problem is that without instruction people who do try and push it with weights are more likely to injure themselves. I train 2-4 times a week depending on work, and I have a group of friends who I train with, and we'll invariably end up explaining squats or deadlifts to someone a couple of times a week. The secret to gym success is simple, start small, set goals and then set new goals when you beat those goals.


I can't list the wierd stuff I see people doing in the gym, but as you and others have mentioned the chaps who do a 1.5 hour bicep "session" and the fellows who seem to think that the E-Z bar and bench are the only pieces of gym equipment they need always raise a wry smile.

My personal favourite from two weeks back though was the "behind-the-leg" deadlift, with a well-rounded back. That was just  :uhrr:


I trained up to pull ups about 9 months ago, because it annoyed me that I couldn't do them. I found that starting by doing them starting with my feet on the floor, even doing pullup negatives (jump up then slowly down) got me there, and now I can happily do sets of 10-12 from a full hang with a 5kg plate.

Also dips are the shit. I fucking love me some dips.

Another reason people suck at pull-ups:  Because people don't work their back muscles very well, and those who do are doing lat pulldowns without not nearly enough weight (if you can easily pull it down to your stomach, that's not enough weight).  It's not all biceps, people. 

Another peeve....people who attempt to impress by doing way too many reps (with light weights, of course!).  Gee, great job with those 38 extremely fast hammer curls, shithead.  You've accomplished exactly nothing.

They're toning. They don't want to get all bulky :drillf:

:mob: That sentence made me so angry. God. I should be sad that people can say that with a straight face.

Someday, I'd like to do a one armed pullup. That would be cool. I have a shot at it, since I'm thin and have disproportionally large back muscles from climbing.

I give 0 fucks about muscle bulk, if I were to do any sort of training it would be cardiovascular. Then again, I wouldn't do it by going to a training centre and lifting light weights like a right twat, I'd do it by biking to/from work.

But then you would be all sweaty and stinky at work....