While I'm flattered that you think me average, a) my BMI the last time you saw me was 35 (it's now gone up to 39 between the 6 pounds of weight I've gained and the height I've apparently lost) -- i'm not average, I'm obese and b) I've seen the biggest loser; in the first season alone, 3/4 of them had starting weights below my pre-pregnancy weight.
I'm also, for the record, not far from the largest size you can buy a good sports bra for, and it costs $80, which should give you at least one factor that makes it hard as hell for larger women to do any exercise more strenuous than a slow meander. My daughter, for the record, is going to get a high quality sports bra no matter what it costs, because I spent my teenage years not developing physical activity levels because 36D boobs at 16 fucking hurt when you don't have a proper sports bra.
That said..
One of the articles I pointed you to contains the core of how "those people" get like that.. they "diet their way up the scale". Dieters fuck up their metabolism something fierce. So they lose 20 pounds, but then they gain back 30 when they stop starving themselves. Then they lose another 20 but gain back 25.. it's a vicious circle, and it starts for many people in their teen years (my cousin, for example, started cycle-dieting in middle school and when she got pregnant at 22, gained 65 pounds because her metabolism was FUBAR). 3/4 of people gain back more weight than they lost, because, frankly, starvation level diets are not long term strategies, but they're the only thing that's going to maintain the weight loss past about 5 years.
And, for the morbidly obese every pound you put on makes exercising harder, not just because clothes you can reasonably exercise in are only made up to a certain size (leaving aside the boob issue, if all you can wear is a mumu, how are you supposed to walk 2 miles in that without incapacitating yourself from chafing?), but also because you're ashamed to leave your house, let alone leave your house to exercise because overweight people get laughed at for exercising and shit on for not exercising.
no subject
I'm also, for the record, not far from the largest size you can buy a good sports bra for, and it costs $80, which should give you at least one factor that makes it hard as hell for larger women to do any exercise more strenuous than a slow meander. My daughter, for the record, is going to get a high quality sports bra no matter what it costs, because I spent my teenage years not developing physical activity levels because 36D boobs at 16 fucking hurt when you don't have a proper sports bra.
That said..
One of the articles I pointed you to contains the core of how "those people" get like that.. they "diet their way up the scale". Dieters fuck up their metabolism something fierce. So they lose 20 pounds, but then they gain back 30 when they stop starving themselves. Then they lose another 20 but gain back 25.. it's a vicious circle, and it starts for many people in their teen years (my cousin, for example, started cycle-dieting in middle school and when she got pregnant at 22, gained 65 pounds because her metabolism was FUBAR). 3/4 of people gain back more weight than they lost, because, frankly, starvation level diets are not long term strategies, but they're the only thing that's going to maintain the weight loss past about 5 years.
And, for the morbidly obese every pound you put on makes exercising harder, not just because clothes you can reasonably exercise in are only made up to a certain size (leaving aside the boob issue, if all you can wear is a mumu, how are you supposed to walk 2 miles in that without incapacitating yourself from chafing?), but also because you're ashamed to leave your house, let alone leave your house to exercise because overweight people get laughed at for exercising and shit on for not exercising.