My mom and sister

Growing up I was never fat. I was actually downright skinny when I was a young boy. My sister on the other hand was always the “chubby one”. I grew up in a very nice family with loving parents and a great younger sister. We sure had our fights and I was usually the one who got punished for them as I was the older one, but all in all I had a really nice childhood. My sister wasn’t the only one who suffered with their weight in my family. My mom has always been on the heavy side and she blamed it on her upbringing. Her grandmother and single parent mom always kept encouraging her to be plump “just in case you catch a disease you’ll have plenty of reserves”. This was their mentality and it certainly had shown on my mom. She definitely had been obese for as long as I could remember.

Me and my sister

As I was growing up I have witnessed my mom’s struggle with weight and her constant goal of trying to get slimmer and lose it all. She even went to “fat camp” where they put her on a zero calorie diet for several weeks to try to get her to lose her weight. And she did lose some, as to be expected, but she gained it all back once she came back home. It was a constant, never ending battle for her. I have also witnessed my sister’s struggles with her weight and the constant nagging and denial of sweets and snacks from my parents that came with her being overweight. I was clearly the lucky one. I inherited my dad’s “skinny genes” while my poor sister was stuck with my mom’s “fat genes”. But not only I inherited the “skinny genes” I also got a good dose of my dad’s running genes.

My dad was a runner. He went to college to earn his degree in cartography and civil engineering which naturally lent itself to be on the college team of foot orienteering. If you don’t know what foot orienteering is, don’t worry, I actually had to look up the English term myself as me being born and raised in Hungary it’s not a term I have actually learned or used in English, ever. Think of it as cross country running and map reading at the same time. You have to navigate and visit several points through terrain with nothing but a topography map and a compass. First to visit all points wins the race. The sport started in Norway and it is apparently a lot more popular in Europe than in the US but I just checked and there are several local orienteering events even where I live. Having said all this, my dad did compete at college level and he did OK.

Mom pinning the bib on my friend

For me, running started when I was 10 years old. I had a friend who was training at a sport school three times a week. I was never really good at any of the team sports at school and I thought I would go with him to training and see how I liked running. It turned out that I actually enjoyed running very much. I liked it enough that what started out as a Monday, Wednesday, Friday activity in the afternoons has turned into a five times a week training within a year.

On my way to victory

By the third year into my running career I was one of the top runners in the group and I have moved from my regular junior high school to a special magnet school for athletic talent. I was swimming three times a week before school and ran on the track four to five times while ran cross country in the woods once a week. I was clearly on my way to becoming an elite athlete. I won numerous track meets and cross country events on the regional level and I was national age group champion in 4,500 meter cross country amongst 13-14 year old boys in Hungary. I have clocked 9:26 on track for 3,000 meters (5:04/mile pace for 1.86 miles) and my personal best in 10,000 meter road racing was 35:14 at age 13.

So what happened? I got tired. I burned out. By the time I entered high school I felt like I was done with running. School was taking a toll on me, I went to another magnet school, a bilingual high school where I had to learn English and my classes were taught in both English and Hungarian. I just couldn’t take running any more so I quit. And I never ran another mile unless my life depended on it for almost 20 years. The one thing that I never changed though were my eating habits.

I thought I was still growing and burning calories just like I did when I was running. I was going through chocolate and pizza like it was nobody’s business. I slowly but surely started to gain weight. Before I knew it I was getting chubby. My classmates started to make fun of me even though I wasn’t that fat. I was overweight from my lean mean running machine look but by today’s standards I was barely overweight on the BMI scale. But when you come from 140 lbs, 175 lbs starts to look pretty hefty. The last time I wore size 31″ waist pants, the size I’m currently wearing, were freshman year of high school.

If I was on The Biggest Loser Jillian would have a field day with the fact that my mom passed away when I turned 15. She would blame my obesity and overeating on the fact that my mom died. Mom mom had breast cancer and she passed away at age 39. I really don’t think her passing had anything to do with my obesity. I simply stopped exercising and kept eating the same way I used to. But my mom’s death had a lot to do with the fact that I finally turned my life around. The closer I was getting to age 39 the more I started thinking about how short life is and how much more I wanted to do in life and how living the unhealthy way in an obese body would not let it happen. So while I wouldn’t attribute my obesity to “fat genes” inherited from my mom I certainly credit her death as partially the reason why I started my transformation. As for my sister, she has turned her life around about 14 years ago when she finally became fit and she has been the skinny one ever since while I became the family fatty.

But things are turning around once again. I’m on my way to regaining, hopefully, most of my genetic given speed and running ability while losing all the excess weight while my sister is getting bigger and bigger by the minute. I expect that by the time I visit her in August she’ll be bigger than me. You might wonder why would anyone say such a cruel thing about their sister. But this time it’s a good thing as she’s pregnant and expecting a baby at the end of September .

So there you have it, my secret running past. While I certainly have lived the life of a couch potato for the past 19 years I certainly was blessed with some great running genes that are hopefully helping my new, leaner, fitter me to try to achieve my goal of running a Boston Qualifying marathon time in October.

But today they had an article that had a very intriguing title and I knew where it was going the minute I read it: 15 Reasons Plus-Size Shopping Sucks. I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with what I was about to read but I was completely unprepared to what I really read, especially in the comments.

The article is a pretty basic rant type article, not unlike this one, it was written by a no-name guest writer that I have seldom seen before, he’s not one of the regular writers, I mean 4 entries in 6 months is not a whole lot. He complains about lack of decent clothes selection for “Plus-Size” folks. Some of his reasons aren’t economically sound at all and some are just plain wrong. I was going to respond to the original article in detail in the comments but by the time I have read to the end of the comments my blood was boiling.

Here is my beef with the original article.

The complaints seems to be that large clothing is “frumpy” and “dowdy” and look like tents. Well guess what? Large people need large clothes to cover all that body. And it’s not the clothes, it’s the people who wear them that are “frumpy” and “dowdy”. That is just the nature of the beast. I’m sorry but have you seen a hot looking Peterbuilt truck? Me neither! But I have seen plenty of sleek sport coupes that I’d love to keep in my garage.

The second complaint seems to be that stores are difficult and don’t support the plus size people and the message the stores send with their tight little mannequins is “just appalling” and people browsing the plus size section feel like they’re being judged. Apparently they’re not judged enough! Or certainly not enough to lay off the doughnuts! I wish there was more stigma attached to being obese in our society. It would have helped me stay fit and healthy. But apparently most people simply don’t give a flip about judgmental people or appaling store displays as they chow down the food court pretzels and Cinnabons.

The third complaint is just plain stupid and shows a clear ignorance about economics 101. He complains that bigger clothes cost more than smaller clothes. He says based on the same logic men’s clothes should cost more than women’s as they are bigger and take more material. The cost of the goods is set by supply and demand. When there is a limited supply of large clothes the price will be higher as there are fewer substitute goods that the fat guy can get their hands on if they think the 5XL shirt in one store is too expensive, chances are the other store does not even carry that size so they either buy it at a premium or walk shirtless, and heaven save us from the 5XL shirtless visual image of a naked guy! I actually feel bad about posting underwear pictures of my 2XL body. Women simply buy more clothes than men, the demand is higher and women are willing to pay more for their clothes hence the higher price. It has nothing, or very little to do with material cost. Perfumes cost about $3 to make and they sell for $50+. Why? Because that is what the market will bear. Golf clubs cost about the same to make regardless whether they’re the top of the line Nike for $1,000+ a set or the cheapest Wilson for $180. Price has nothing to do with raw material cost. It has to do with image, marketing and perceived value.

The story about how skinny teens are needed for the porn industry is just plain disgusting. If teens get the impression that it is OK to be fat we’re all doomed. It is NOT OK to be fat! You can try to justify it all day long, the bottom line remains, it is bad for you in the long haul to be fat. And that is what our children should receive as a signal and impression. Sure there is the other extreme with overly skinny models that portray unrealistic ideals but somehow I failed to hear the anorexia epidemic that is about to hit our 30+ generation or about the childhood anorexia epidemic that is causing alarms going off. All I hear is childhood obesity epidemic and the cost of obesity on our health care system.

So the story sucked and it was a waste of time for me to even read it. But what really got me going was the comments and how defensive people got with their comments when they were suggested to lose some weight. I have commented about 6 times on that article but most of my comments got deleted, somehow they were construed as personal attacks. They weren’t. They were simply pointing out the fallacies and the total idiocy of some of the people that commented. Two of my responses still remain as of now but I just have to quote some of the gems over here that I think are worthy of repeating.

One person wrote this:

Sure, losing weight is generally a good thing. But what about the people whose metabolisms are screwed up by the medication they need to stay healthy? What about those whose body types are naturally larger than whatever the general public has decided is the correct size? What about those who are physically incapable of weight-reducing exercise due to illness, injury, or medical problems? Not every plus-sized person is that size because they “choose” to be so.

This is a totally delusional proposition about the general public deciding on correct size. The general public is actually promoting obesity and it is getting widely accepted now. These people are obese by even these new social standards! The rest of the argument does not stand. Weight management can be attained strictly through diet without exercise. But it is impossible to attain it via exercise and no diet. So those poor sobs who can’t exercise due to illness, injury or medical problems can and should still lay off the nachos. Chances are if they got to a healthier weight they would have far fewer illnesses or medical problems to begin with. There is no such thing as a slow metabolism. It’s a myth. People just eat too much refined crap.

I loved this one:

I’m working on losing weight. HOWEVER….if we are supposed to work out and exercise to lose weight, where is the company that sells (at a reasonable price) workout gear for plus sized women. I’m fat and I get really hot and sweaty. Where is my underarmour? Where is my sports bra that actually holds it in without making me so hot I feel like I’m going to die.

This one just made me laugh and cry at the same time. These folks just don’t get it. There is no such thing because there is no demand for it. And you can’t make a company do it. They have to feel like there is a market for it, take their chances and try to sell it. The best part though is in the parenthesis: “at a reasonable price”. These people not only demand that companies make this stuff, they demand it to be reasonably priced. Talk about sense of entitlement! UnderArmour is anything but reasonably priced even for us, “skinny folks”.

For what it’s worth here is the Underarmour sizing chart:

I’m a 32/32 with a 39″ chest and a 15″ neck. I’m a Medium. They make Small through XXX-Large. I’m 177lbs and still overweight by any standard. They have one smaller size than me and 4 sizes larger than me. What does this tell you? This tells me that Underarmour tailors plenty for larger people. At 227lbs I was a 45″ waist, 17″ neck and 45″ chest. I would have fit into their XX-Large stuff. If you need anything larger than their XXX-Large you should not be exercising and concentrate on losing weight through diet first.

Another disillusioned person:

Do you realize some stores only go up to 12 or 14? The average size of the American woman is 14, so the average American woman is not finding clothes. And just because you’re a size 14 or 16 or whatever doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy. If you’re going to use clothing size to gauge health, well then everyone should be a size 0!

If the average size American woman was indeed a size 14 then stores would be full of size 14 clothes because there would be a large demand for such things. Clearly this commenter was a size 14 woman trying to justify her size as she’s only being average. Who am I to stop her from that pipe dream?

I have replied to this comment but it got deleted:

This is not about “catering” to people who wear plus-sizes in clothes. Its about giving people who are fat all of the options for clothing that thin people have. This is a basic right and has nothing to do with health or anything else.

Can you say “sense of entitlement”? Since when did buying clothes in a store become a basic right? I recently became a US Citizen and I don’t think I have read anywhere in the rights and responsibilities section about plus size clothes. I think there was something about life,  liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is a huge difference between the right to happiness and the right to pursue happiness. Apparently these folks didn’t get the memo.

The rest of the comments bring up every possible argument about being fat:

• I’m on medication
• I’m sick
• I have fat genes
• I have a slow metabolism

But anyone who lived it and can be totally honest with themselves would know that people are fat because of one very simple fact: they consumed more calories than what they burned.