While technically true, still somewhat deceptive: There is a point at which you can't do more exercise - what I mean is that a person who is perfectly healthy and perfectly fit could exercise 24/7 but still eat more calories than they could burn in that time (not to mention eventually they would collapse even attempting to exercise non-stop)

There is also the fact that even if you exercise enough to burn off all the calories you eat in a high-refined sugar diet, you could still end up with Insulin-Resistant Hypoglycaemia (the sudden increase in sugar levels after eating something sugary would cause this even though eventually you would burn off all the sugar in your body through exercise). I have Hypoglycaemia and trust me, it something you do not want to have!

With regards to calorie counting - unfortunately this is another version of a 'starvation diet' i.e. a restriction diet. It is far from a healthy way to lose weight. Calorie counting or restricting your diet will send your body into 'starvation mode' where it essentially panics because of lack of energy and starts to try and retain as much of that energy as possible which means it will try to store as much fat as possible, slowing down weight loss and increasing the absorption of fat from food into the body. This is why so often people stop losing weight on a diet and why when the cease the diet they end up putting on even more weight than they had to start with.
Instead of thinking in terms of calorie counting or restriction, you want portion control. this doesn't mean having smaller portions than is the normal healthy amount for a person, it means eating the amount that a person should eat to be healthy (one serving protein, two servings of complex carbohydrates and 3-5 servings of vegetables - one serving being about the size of your palm). In all likelyhood you could eat as much vegetables as you want because you end up very full before you managed to eat more calories than you could burn.

All this brings me to the point about losing weight the healthy way. It starts with diet. If you eat well with the right portions and the right ingredients, even if you don't get any extra exercise than you already get, you will more than likely lose some small amount of weight. To go the full distance, you need to exercise. Again, you don't want to be exercising more than a normal person needs. Doing this, you will lose weight slowly but surely. It won't be up and down, it will be consistent and healthy. This isn't a 'diet', this is just a healthy way of living. One of the great things about this, is when you reach a healthy weight, you don't stop living this way, you keep it up and your weight will remain stable!
Many tv shows that involve people losing weight often have people losing weight too fast. You really should only be losing about 1kg a week. Any more than that and your risk things like Orthostatic Intolerance, blood pressure problems, heart problems (like palpatations) or shock. Of course if for some reason you want to push yourself and lose weight fast, increase the amount of exercise you do, absolutely do not decrease your necessary food intake (otherwise you could create a vitamin and mineral deficiency, another reason why calorie counting or restriction diets are dangerous).

Seriously, if you do this, not only will you end up being a stable healthy weight, you will be much healthier. I have M.E. so exercise is very difficult for me, but even so, eating right and small amounts of exercise every day have given me a marked improvement in energy levels, my skin and hair are really soft, I have a healthy glow, I can think better and I have lost 13kgs so far (only 7 more kilos to go)!

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The key is exercise. You can eat as many calories as you can burn. If you eat food high in sugar and fat and sit all day you are taking in 10x as many calories as you need. Heredity is an issue in a very small percentage of the people who are obese. 50 years ago how many obese people were there, how about 100 years ago?

The biggest change in the last 100 years is the lack of physical work people perform each day. Back then most things were done by hand and people walked to most places, burning calories.

Modern day foods are high in sugar and high in fat making them taste good. Us americans like things that taste good and feel good and have no self control.

Obesity is only as disabling as a person lets it become.

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Shifting the blame onto the "coporations" rather than accepting you're a fat *BLEEP*ing pile of lard and it's your own fault. Truly an American value.

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Well keep in mind in about one cup of chopped carrots is 52 calories, in order to lose weight you need to eat under 2000 calories a day by Calorie counting. 1500 calories (which is the normal number of calories a person should eat to lose weight) divided by 52 works out to be about 28-29 cups of carrots. This equals about 1.5 dry gallon of carrots. So think of eating a milk jug and a half filled with carrots. However a person who can't move as easily or is at bed rest needs to eat 1200 calories or less a day to loses weight which is more like just the milk jug filled with carrots. To me at least that is a lot of food, and plus you shouldn't just eat carrots in order to lose weight. It is unhealthy and unbalances your nutritional values, plus you would get sick of eating just carrots after one day.

Anyway, what I'm saying is my mom before she had her bypass surgery, she tried every single diet out there, (this lists includes, Salad Diet, Calorie Counting, Carb Counting, Nutrisystem, and a few others.) and still didn't lose a pound even with doing 30-1 hour of walking every day (and even more at her work being a nurse and all). She even had to wait a few months to get her bypass surgery because she had already had some health problems that prevented her from getting her surgery sooner.

So what I'm saying is some people just can't lose weight by changing their diet and exercising more and have to take drastic measures in order to lose weight. Some people can't even get surgery now like my mom because its too expensive since its no longer covered by most medical insurance companies, cause they believe the same thing you do. Plus, there are still people out there who can't get surgery at all because they are too unstable and would die on the table.

I'm not saying that an excuse to not do anything about it, but just because someone is unable to lose weight and has to use a scooter to get around a store doesn't mean they aren't trying to. For all we could know they could be running laps around the hospital or doing simple bed exercises and eating just carrots all day long. Yeah I get your point that they should be walking instead but keep in mind some overweight people have the joints of 60 year olds because of the extra weight and can't walk because of pain.

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well, madkat-Z
forget the scooter or the disabled parking, it's not really what you eat, it's how much, i'm not sure of this genetic hing you speak of since if you eat 3000kJ a day and put out 5000kJ then obviously you are burning fat, it also depends on what type of excersise you do. you Mass body inde is very inacurate since it depends on what type of build you are.

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