GST-free veges or a gym membership?

[Ronin]

Ronin = Phil Goff... LOL jokes bro.

f*ck no, Labour are almost as bad as the Greens for always wanting blame someone else :pfft:

[Pseudonym]

So what made me quit smoking, ditch the junk food, and get serious about training? I did. It wasn't until I woke up one day (metaphorically) and decided that I was sick of living the life that I'd brought upon myself.

Fantastic post, Ronin. :clap:

But what was it that made you wake up and make this decision?

[Chillicat]

Completely agree with Ronin and I was remarkably similar. For me my waking up point (or 'rock bottom' to use addiction speak) was being about to turn 30 and sheer vanity coming into play - I started to see those horrible lines around my mouth from sucking on a ciggy all day and realised just how horrible I was going to look once that really kicked in. Also with eating I knew that gravity was going to kick in shortly and that all the poor eating choices were going to catch up with me - again with the vanity. I took up swimming as I've always enjoyed it and did it as a kid, and realised just how crap I was at swimming with smoker's lungs. Those things together got me off the bad eating and smoking.

But people who are obese clearly don't have vanity issues so not sure what to do about them

[Ronin]

But what was it that made you wake up and make this decision?

I'd guess there were a few contributing factors. I'd come out of a long and unhealthy marriage, during which I had allowed myself to become dragged down. So I no longer had that excuse. Partly vanity...now that I was single I had to admit to myself that I really was fat (obese) not just "carrying a bit extra" and that if I ever wanted to have sex again, I was gonna have to do something about it.

Mainly though, it's not really anything I can put my finger on...I just literally had had enough of looking and feeling the way I did. Diet was the first thing to change. I went into major calorie deficit, and shed 30kg. Then came training ... I figured I should "tone up" having lost so much weight. Finally the idiocy of leaving the gym and sparking up a durry hit me, along with the growing feeling that I just wasn't enjoying the smokes any more, and I went cold turkey.

As I said, the impetus to change has to come from within if it's to have any lasting effect. Every time I'd tried to quit smoking or start exercising in the past, it was due to an external influence, eg, cost of smoking, new gf wanted me to quit, better example for the kids etc. But guess what... none of them worked. Even hypnosis will not work if the subject isn't ready to change.

But people who are obese clearly don't have vanity issues so not sure what to do about them

Not too sure I agree completely with this, we just found other ways to be vain. For example, I would look at the height/weight chart at the doctor's, and see that I was obese. But I'd explain it away by saying that I was carrying a lot of muscle under a layer of fat. Or just that the chart was unrealistic. But really...5'7 & 105kg...I was only fooling myself. Now I am still obese (as per BMI) but wear the label with pride.

Similarly, the people who refer to themselves as "cuddly", "curvaceous", or my personal fave "BBW" :pfft: . Or the good old "I'm happy with my body the way it is, it's you that has a problem with it", hell just take a browse through the profiles on NZDating for a few more euphamisms. Or we'd just ridicule those that did work out and eat right, because it was easier to take the piss and try to pull others down than to take steps to confront and rectify my own shortcomings.

I found this picture a while back, and I think it kinda sums things up quite nicely.

[Chillicat]

But people who are obese clearly don't have vanity issues so not sure what to do about them

Not too sure I agree completely with this, we just found other ways to be vain.

It was meant tongue in cheek (guess the smily didn't make that clear).

Similarly, the people who refer to themselves as "cuddly", "curvaceous", or my personal fave "BBW" :pfft:

Yeah, fat chicks calling themselves 'curvy' always gets on my nerves. I'm not fat and have never been genuinely overweight (only by my own standards), but I DO consider myself to be curvy, as I have an hourglass shape - so I have what is very definitely a 'curve' inwards at the waist. Not a boyish straight up and down figure and not fat, but curvy. And I absolutely resent fat women claiming that word as a euphamism for lardy when it doesn't have to mean any such thing.

I also have a butt that curves in one direction and a thigh curves in the other. Again, not straight up and down and what'd I'd term as boyish, but womanly and curvy.

You certainly don't have to be fat to have curves.

[Ronin]

And then there's "Rubenesque"

Damn right CC, nothing wrong with curves. I'm sure most of us guys started going to the gym to improve our chances of getting closer to those curves It's the ones that are just one big curve that are a problem lol.

[Ryno33]

I wouldnt mind cheap les mills membership...

[vracula]

free memberships wont do crap,probably help the young folk but that's it.with the gyming it's not just about health majority of the folk that come to gym WANT to look good ,good health is just a side effect,I have friends who came to the gym with the idea of being healthy quit after a month,because they think being healthy is hard work clean up your diet and that alone will keep you healthy or atleast meet the standards, looking good on the other hand involves working out and the diet.people need to change their mindset.

[Thunderhorse]

Why not subsidise meat and dairy? Bastards.