Unfortunately a lot of people have that misconception about BBers - it's up there with all the women who think they will automatically become big if they do Nautilus once a week.
I don't take AAS, but I know you folks who do have to work hard to make gains while on them. I am sick of pointing it out to people that BBers work damn hard for their physiques.... argh.
Do you see what is going on here?
I do, and have for quite a while.
When these two boards interact, it's like everybody's speaking two different languages.
*Nobody*
really understands how the other half lives. They *think* they do, but they don't.
So they go over to the other half and scream a pile of insulting bullshit, and the other half gets pissed off, forms an even worse opinion about the attacker than they ever would have had to begin with, and posts bullshit back.
Nobody on the NAAFA board knows shit about BB. I sure didn't when I came over here, and I will be the first to admit that my understanding is still elementary at best. But the fact is, when you go over there and troll, people decide QUICKLY that you are all a bunch of assholes, they post stuff like the above, and everybody decides they don't want to know anything about BB *ever* if that's how you all act.
You go over there and use the word "diet" and those folks think they already know what you're going to say. They immediately think of that horrible 800-calorie-a-day grapefruit plan that Grandma put them on when they were 16. They don't understand how you people eat or that when you talk about "diet," it's a whole different stratosphere. And you people aren't skilled in discussing it without giving offense (i.e. Following The Rules Of The Board which really ARE there for a good reason!), so they never will get it either. Here in the non-BB world, "diet" means something very different, and it takes some doing to get your idea of it across. Along with something in very short supply over here: Tact. AND the realization that *some* people over there just aren't ready to hear it, and maybe they won't be for a while.
We talk about being discouraged and thinking maybe the good Lord just meant us to be fat, and not even being able to THINK about starting another diet again in our LIVES, and you don't know what the hell we're talking about. You *think* you know what it is, but you don't. You've never experienced the kind of chronic ongoing despair over what I looked like *even when I was thin* that I woke up with and went to bed with for almost 20 years, so it's just laziness. Fuck us. YFF ... blah blah blah.
So you go over there and they get pissed off, then they come over here and piss you off, and pretty soon everyone's convinced that the other guy is just an asshole, and the sad thing is they judge every fat person or every fit person by what just happened here.
(Kind of sounds like Americans and Arabs right about now, if I think about it.)
Being fat and overeating is an addiction. It is no better and it is no worse then drug abuse or alcoholism.
Yeah, for some people it is, and don't I know it.
However, I don't see anyone here posting threads entitled "The Alcoholism Chronicles" or "The Drug Abuse Chronicles" and directing this amount of hatred at these individuals. I don't see anyone here trolling on any alcohol or drug group. I don't see the worry about how much *their* health care is costing you. It's just us, because we're fat, and you're not. You think we LOOK ugly, so you come over to our board unprovoked and ACT ugly. The trouble is, the uglier fat people get treated, the uglier they start to act.
Scratch that. Make that "people in general."
I think anyone can appreciate the difficulty of kicking a drug or alcohol addiction. However, if *we* have trouble, we are just weak-willed, lazy, etc, etc, etc. A lot has to do with one's attitude, which needs a little help if one is to accomplish anything at all.
Has anyone read a book called "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk,"? It has a lot to say about how to behave so people, and not just kids, can find their own motivation rather than *react against you* all the time.
When your mom wanted you to clean your room and she said, "Look at your room!! You are nothing but a slob! I am so ashamed of the mess in here! Now, if you could only be as neat as your big brother ..." how motivating was that for you? Ever tried to explain to a little kid that he can't have Fruit Loops for breakfast because you are out of them?? Chances are you will have a half hour shouting fest of "BUT I WANT THEM!!" "But there aren't any!" "BUT I WANT THEM!" "I TOLD YOU THERE AREN'T ANY, YOU LITTLE TWERP!"
It's human nature, guys. We're this way when we're born and we tend to stay this way. If you tell a fat person, "You're a fat lazy slob and you should be doing X, Y, and Z," chances are you're going to hear, "But I've tried and tried and I'm discouraged. I don't want to hear about it anymore!" If you shout it back louder, you're just going to hear it back louder.
The whole point of that book is that people need to have their feelings heard and validated if they're ever going to get over the feeling. You hear that in grief counseling, too. What you have in there is a bunch of people in the middle of severe discouragement, having those feelings out in a nonjudgemental atmosphere.
I know the Diehard Hater Faction is just going to say this is more bunk, and fuck me, fatroll, YFF and all that kind of stuff. Fine. But all I know is that I wouldn't be exercising at all now if I hadn't had a more accepting atmosphere to find a different viewpoint in. All I could do was look at slender people and go: "Hopeless. Never happen. Why try?" And maybe it never WILL happen, but I am eating healthier than I used to, and I haven't missed a scheduled day at the gym in weeks, and maybe due to that at least diabetes and heart disease won't happen either.
My point is, let those people gestate in there a while. It helps *some people.*
And you don't have to be a magazine-cover piece of beefcake or a stick-thin runway model to stay relatively healthy and able to take care of yourself into your 80's and 90's ... which is ultimately what we all want to do, right?
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I've about had it with trying to explain and make peace with you people. I'm tired. I'm saving my energy for the gym. There's enough hate in the world right now as it is.
Peace.
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