Thoughts on this ?

A year or two ago, I noticed they’ve fully embraced relativism in their publications.
Makes me wonder how they achieve “fact” in their cycling evals.

 

Nobody knows when they are going to die, or why. People have died while riding Grands Tours ... they sure weren't fat.

I think the idea is that shaming fat people (and I say this as a very fat person who doesn't give a .... frog .... ) is even more debilitating because fat people who feel fat and useless and then are judged badly by much of society, are even less likely to get up off the couch and do something.

If we tell fat people that it is fine to be fat and fine to get up and ride a wide-saddle, upright bike slowly around the neighborhood ... that is Step One. Telling them they are fat and wrong and doomed to a horrible future ... makes that future more likely.

Yeah, I know all about what being fat is about .... I used to be super-fit until 20 years ago when everything changed .... I see the contrasts quite starkly ... the health issues, the mental issues, the long-term issues with accelerated decay of the body ....

But the idea that being thin is being healthy is wrong. The idea that being fit will automatically give you a longer or a better life is wrong. Generally, sure .... but each of us is an individual. We have all heard about the unhealthy, unfit hard-drinking smokers living on fried fat and bacon, who live to be 106.

Further, some people are never going to be athletic. People who naturally value fitness and enjoy exercise sometimes can't understand that other people are totally different. We all have different paths, we all lead different lives. People don't have to be fit or even healthy to be valid, valuable people .... something people sometimes forget.

Living longer isn't necessarily better, anyway .... live the life you love, for as long as you can.

And yes, a lot of overweight, unhealthy people have a host of other issues which lead to them being overweight and unhealthy. I am not saying that fat people are fine ... a lot of them have mental and emotional issues (and so do a lot of fit people ... but ... ) and a lot of those folks lack the coping mechanisms and just get worse and worse----part of why in general people have tired to stop burdening the already (physically and mentally) overburdened.

I am not defending fat people or people being fat ... but in a lot of ways our culture attacks fat people ... and that is itself unhealthy.

 

No, I agree that way too many Americans eat way too much food and most get way too little exercise .... and yes, this will tend to shorten their lives, and run up health care costs (of course, a lot of things do that--most not at all related to health care itself.)

I don't think many people would sincerely argue that given the options, health is better than poorer health or ill health.

My thinking is, you have to grab the clay to mold it. if you are fat, that is what you have to work with. If you are thin, crippled, broken stupid, unwell ..... whatever .... you need to accept where you are at before you can change it.

Speaking as a person who has been trying to lose a lot of weight for a long time, I can tell you that being fat flat sucks .... but if you don't like me fat you don't like me.

It's like the people who look down on cyclists who ride less, or who don't do intervals and hill repeats, and all that .... this is who I am and what I do, and if you cannot accept it .... let me show you the outside of my door, it's really interesting as it swings shut.

 

One last thought (yeah, right) on weight and fitness. I did an awesome charity tour in 2015---a couple dozen amazing teens from all over the world, who had lost parents or relatives to the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Falun Dafa qigong. These were all top two percent of the class, multiple athletic letters, masters of some musical instrument, (of the girls, many studied Chinese classical dance which is something like ballet.) These kids were Fit.

By the end of the LA to Washington DC tour, I was able to pretty much keep up with the fast group (at least for a while) despite being hugely fat---because I was putting in the miles and pushing really hard to keep up.

The lady in the article seems to be of the sort who is genetically overweight---mesomorph, some call it---but still athletic.

Does the extra weight put more stress on the joints? yes, but possibly offset by the extra support the trained muscles can give.

or maybe she is accelerating the wear on her joints .... but I know a whole bunch of typically "athletic" guys who are getting or have gotten knee replacements .... from riding or running too hard.

My point (hah ... like I have a point) is that "fat" and "athletic" are not mutually exclusive. And further, the habit we have lately of putting down fat people leads to everything bad and in now way promotes getting fit----independent of weight or weight loss.

The author seems ot be saying, "Hey, if we stop umping on fat people, maybe we'd have fewer inactive, dangerously obese, sedentary fat people .... or maybe the fat people who Are athletic won't get scorned for BMI before anyone even looks at their FTP."

I know in some parts of Europe, getting fat in middle age was a sign of success and respectability---a person who was overweight could afford to eat richly, and didn't have to be out busting his butt doing physical labor---it was a sign of respectability---and as for the extra few years of life, meh ... people were going to die anyway.

In some cultures, being fat was the ultimate sign of success, because only fat people could afford to overeat---and they probably lived as long because of the lower stress and better medical care.

Attitudes and how they change over time and circumstance.

The article isn't really about being fat---it is about the popular perceptions of being fat.

 

While none of these folks are morbidly obese, neither are any of them exactly svelte ... but they are all competing in a bike race, and working hard, too.

 

She (the author of the article) has a point in that if overweight riders are occasionally used in ads for gear and clothing .... maybe some overweight people might think, "Hey, I could do that." However, a lot of those ads cater to people who already ride. Oh, well.

In my case, being active is much more of a mental than a physical thing. When I was young and full of hormones---up until 40 or 42, before I got married and ruined for life-- --being active was natural and easy. After I took several years off to sit behind a computer 14 hours a day and was Completely sedentary .... now getting out of a chair or off the couch takes a huge effort. Stuff like seeing cycling on TV can actually help ... so there is potentially some validity to the idea that showing fat people in cycling ads might help get fat people moving.

But, as with all things .... I don't know anything, and I am not even sure what I believe.

 

All great points. I don't have anything to add except a little about my wife's and my weight loss and the noticeable benefits from it.

I weighed over 210 at one point and could feel it in my joints and how I moved, I kinda felt like that was a precursor to what would happen if I didn't do something about my weight. I had always been thin and active but even with just maybe 50 extra pounds I could feel the difference in my life.

My wife lost over 225 pounds, she had gotten very large yet we both tried to walk and hike as much as we could. But with extra weight it was hard to do very much, especially for her.

So we had two perspectives on being overweight - mine from being somewhat overweight to her's which crossed into the morbid obesity area. Both affected most aspects of our lives in one way or another, things that disappeared when we lost the weight.

 

Yeah .... for most of us, being fat sucks. I guess people who have always been heavy have nothing to contrast it against, but I feel every extra pound .... and there are a lot of them.

Gaining and losing weight are simple matters .... calories in versus calories burned ... but the psychology and physiology involved is exceedingly complex.

I have a lot of respect for people who are able to drop big poundage. Grats to you both.

 

I'm 6' and have been around 205-215 for the last 40 years. I do not have a "biker" body other than maybe legs. I get a lot of lifting in my new job so the 185 I was at riding every day while in between jobs and on sabbatical for 10 months in 2019 has gone back to 205 but I have put on good bit of upper body muscle. I have a small bit of a donut that'll never go away but have been same 34-36 waist size forever and just short of olympic training, nothing's gonna change that. I feel great for 60, ride all I want, do whatever physical stuff is on the table in hot or cold weather and have a moderate diet....which means I eat moderate amounts of good and bad. I go to wife's crossfit class and get the wut just happened response from people doing that stuff everyday. I do feel it afterwards more than work or riding but nothing crippling...it's a good hurt. I really don't care what my height/weight/BMI are or "say" about me.....I have low resting heart rate in low 60s to upper 50s, 120/80 blood pressure, less than 200 cholesterol, no aches/pains other than from vigorous exercise, no prescription nothing, blood sugar OK so I eat what I want within reason, exercise within reason, hardly drink - except lots of water and generally do whatever needs doing and/or I feel like doing. I feel blessed, take nothing for granted, know my limits and exist within them, conscious of family histories.........cuz i12ride

Everybody is different and have different needs and challenges.....nothing is absolute for everyone other than GOD. Live it up. Get out and do what you can and be happy about it as much as possible.


(I'll never ride a pink Specialized no matter what tho)

 

It is awesome to see people use cycling to gain fitness as that’s just one of the joys they will reap!

Cycling in the end never gets easier, one just goes faster as the motto states or rides further. But in reality the sport is difficult before building up the stamina and fitness. Kudos to anyone taking up bikes as a way to be healthier.

 

I have always had an interest in fitness and when the internet came out I found all kind of fitness sites. They were not about fitness at all, they were about weight loss. Losing weight doesn’t make you fit, it makes you thin.

 

Very true - so many people I know think they are fit because they are thin and exercise just a bit here and there. Better than nothing but it doesn't make them fit or athletic.

My wife and I call the ones who are just thin without any exercise and no obvious tone in their bodies - "skinny fat" (which I guess is a common phrase).

Back in the 80's when being stick-thin but not fit was a Big Deal, a few girls that I went out with were as weak and unable to do very much as a person who was obesely overweight. They couldn't walk very far, were tired all of the time, and were generally unhealthy and sick a lot.

My biking friend Pat, who I used to ride with a fair amount and is one of my favorite people to ride with because we ride the same speed - is a dude with quite a belly on him, so he's what we call "Fat-fit" or "Fit Fat".

We also know this other guy, an acquaintance, who is a bit older than us and very tall but has a VERY large protruding belly, to the point where it distends his jersey and hangs down over his waist some. I designate the guy as "Super Fit Fat" as he is faster than Pat or I and keeps up with the young guys out in front on group rides, in fact he won't even take group rides with my circle of friends as we're too slow for him. In the summer he also takes long fast rides outside and then does Zwift training rides all on the same day, nearly every day.

 

I’ve been fortunate on the weight front. I was super skinny in high school, 6’6”, 155. At 63, I’m 185 in the winter and about 178 in the summer. I’ve been riding since age 18. My only concession to age thus far has been a hip replacement. I need to do more weight training and will get back to the gym after the pandemic. I’m a little stiff in the low back now from a disc surgery about 40 years ago. I don’t recover as fast as I used to, but I can live with that. I think we all have to try to just keep moving.

 

Then there are guys like me---bloated like a sausage and just as healthy.

But at least I am going for a ride later.