How do they get in such a state?

Mere, Love, guilt and neuroses are better than a diet for losing weight any day of the week. Maybe that's it, you guilty neurotic lover, you. There is (at least) one flaw in this theory: How come then am I still such a fat bastard? As for being a lucky bastard - you are. Neuroses don't count until they turn into psychoses.

Think rather than working out i'll start working on my neuroses then! Got any tips for that one John?

How to turn a neurosis into a psychosis, hey? I must admit you've got me completely baffled there, Mere. Leave it with me will ya?

right you are John i'll be sitting in expectant anticipation!!! Unless they ae watching.....are they watching....who said that?

The answer, Karl, is all of the above!

You've noticed too? Yeah, we're not that far behind the yanks when it comes to being Mister Lardarse. (Sorry, Lardass) The younger generation is a hell of a lot wider than mine was, for various reasons, but lack of natural exercise is the main one. No walking to school, in case the perves strike.. no cycling, because of the traffic.. no going out unsupervised, see above. And this despite the fact that we ate fish n'chips cooked in lard (heaven!) and cheerfully scoffed dripping on toast. Calories unlimited.. The other thing that strikes me about younger blokes is the vast number of twenty-somethings who've lost their hair. Okay, mine is going - mainly gone - but it's natural at my age. Near-bald students? There must be something in the water..

Yep, we're all fat down here. Okay, maybe not all of us are fat, but I sure am! I like to blame it on my family, but I think the computer and tv are the dirty culprits. And Karl, how dare you accuse a boy of being fat if you see him in a pool! Swimming is one of the best calorie-burning excersizes!

You must also have noticed that a lot of our youngsters (from pushchair upwards) will not leave home without something to eat and/or drink. They always seem to be eating and drinking, toddlers from bottles, older children/teenagers from bottles or cans. And when crisp packet/can/bottle is empty it is discarded, more often than not on the pavement rather than in a bin. If we could somehow curb this grazing habit, I think we could safe the kids and the enviroment. (from litter anyway.)

I left the U.S. for many reasons, but one is the utter inability to get any exercise at all in daily life. Unless you live in Manhattan or a few orther places, it is simply not possible to walk anywhere. You must drive. Also, the U.S. food processing industry produces 5500 calories of good per day per person net of exports/imports. The average person requires 3000-3500. The difference has to go somewhere. So with advertising, they create by far the most unhealthy health-conscious group of humans in the developed world. I was so relieved to get to Europe and find that people do not spend every waking moment thinking/talking about eating/not-eating. The U.S. is like being at a non-stop foodaholics recovery meeting in which nearly everyone is in relapse.

Its true - we follow America....over in the rest of Europe, though there are people who are larger, in general, young people (and lm talking from kids to people in their, say, 50's) are generally a lot thinner and healthier than us. I went to Sheffield for the 1st time in about twenty years a couple of weeks ago, and was astounded at the size of the young girls in particular, in their tiny teeshirts with large pierced bellies hanging over hipster (? but where are the hips?) jeans. I mentioned it to a friend (average size) who hails from Sheffield/Rotherham, and she said that she'd noticed the same thing when she'd last visited her home city. And not only fat, but evidently as hard as nails too, 'cos it was freezing that day. I remember when I was 15 or 16, nothing on earth couldve persuaded me into flesh baring clothes in public, I was as skinny as a rail, but thought I was flobby and porky. So what happened to make people like that? Or is it a Good Thing? Celebrating the body and all that?

If there actually are any fourteen year-old kids out there who haven't discovered beer and curry there obviously is something seriously wrong with our education system. Anyway I think you've got your nutritional facts a bit mixed up somewhere along the way. For a start beer is liquid and everybody knows there ain't any calories in liquid. As for curry. Fattening? Surely not. Round here we think of it as 'Health Food.' I tried to purchase a Rogan Josh from Holland and Barrett the other day but they tried to fob me off with something called 'Garlic Pills.' Call themselves a take-away or what? My (big fat) arse. By the way Karl. I'm a lot older than fourteen, mate and please don't stare at my arse when Im getting out of the swimming pool in future. It puts me on edge. Anyone care to join me in a Battered Mars Bar Tower with a comfit of Golden Syrup?

No, it's not, Liana. There's just no need to pile on calories like that.. and we're supposed to be greener these days, more conscious of waste. It's a simple fact that carrying fat round strains the heart, etc. and leads to all sorts of health problems in later life - and the NHS can't cope as it is. Why shouldn't people take a bit of responsibility for their own lives, instead of expecting medical science to sort things out for them? And how many of us have been half-squeezed off a bus or train seat by some gigantic blubber-lump who's paid the same fare as we have and is taking up two seats?

the irony of karl's original posting has made me hoot with laughter given that the following appeared on the friends reunited thread : "I was nervous that everyone would be saying, "Blimey, look at Karl Wiggins. He's lost all his hair. And look at how much weight he's put on," " ta for the laff karl old chap ... *wanders off happily*

Yuo're dead right Roy the NHS can't cope with the lard-arses (sorry, I meant 'us lard-arses') but it can't cope with people who are so healthy they insist on living for ever either. Who costs the most in the long run? The fat bloke who keels over aged 37 or the fit bloke who lives to 11?. When answering please bear in mind the State Pension, such as it is. Get born, get fat, die. Life's easy when you think about it.

I meant 110 not 11 otherwise the question is too easy.

As someone who has put on a stone since starting ABCtales - mainly because I now spend 4 hours a day on a train and don't exercise as much as I used to because I spend all my time commuting (and having the odd beer on the way home) - I sympathise with the fat lad. I'm now on a diet, I've cut out the booze and I want to lose up to three stone. Aaaarrrggghhh! I made a TV programme for Dispatches on Channel 4 in the early 90s about kid's health which made quite a stir at the time but sod all has happened about it. It's clearly linked to lack of exercise, eating junk food, sale of school playing fields etc. etc. etc. What is really worrying amongst kids is that their hearts don't grow properly if they don't exercise whilst in their teens. As young kids they naturally tank around all over the place and the vast majority do fine. It's when they get to 11 and older that they become lardies - especially the girls. They need to do three bouts of 20 minutes exercise each week that is the equivalent of fast walking. Not a lot to ask is it? If they don't then their hearts don't grow to the size that they should and they are far more likely to suffer from heart disease in later life. At present over 95% of teenage girls and 92% of boys don't do enough. I look at the friends of my 16 year old daughter and see it. My girl is sports mad - she plays netball, rugby, football, hockey and runs the 100 metres as well. She even comes to the gym with me at every available opportunity. Her mates think she's mad. Not one of them does a damn thing. Depressing, isn't it?

Boredom warning: Factual stuff about exercise and diet: The average man requires approx. 2500 calories a day to maintain his weight. Unfortunately for women (ain't life a bitch, girls) , it's slightly less for them, say 2000. One lb. is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories. A gram of carbohydrate and a gram of protein both provide almost exactly 4 calories. A gram of fat contains almost exactly 9 calories. This explains why you can eat much more carbohydrate and protein than fat without getting, well, fat. Assuming you are maintaining your weight right now cutting daily consumption by 500 calories a day (i.e. 7000 fewer calories per week) will lose you 2lb per week. If you 'crash' diet your body is so smart it will think you are trying to starve it and conserve fat by slowing down it's own metabolic rate. Anything you lose over 2lb in a week is almost certain to be water content, not fat and will return almost as quickly as you lost it. Exercise is good for you because: It burns calories so you could eat the same and use up 500 extra calories per day (roughly one hour moderate effort on an exercise bike, for example) and still lose that 2lb per week. It increases your metabolic rate. Your body just general ticks over at a faster rate. It increases your sex drive because the chemicals released by exercise ar the same as those released during sex. Endomorphins I think. Aerobic exercise (the sort that makes you use oxygen a lot - you know when you start to get out of breath) improves the function of your heart and the efficiency of how you use oxygen. Like Tony says to get any aerobic benefit you need to get your heart rate up to about 130 - 150 beats per minute (depending on age - don't sue if you drop down dead) and maintain that for about 25 - 30 minutes per week. Bikes, rowers, steppers, even brisk walking will all do this. Actually brisk working is surprisingly good. 'Brisk' means anything over 4 mph. If you don't believe me try walking that fast for a mile and then tell me it's not brisk. Anaerobic exercise (weights or other resistance) produces lean muscle. The more lean muscle in your body make-up the higher your metabolic rate. If you lift progressively heavier and heavier weights you'll bulk up - think Arnie Schwarzenneger. If you lift lighter weights but more of 'em you'll get long, lean muscles. Think Brad Pitt (Fight Club version) and Geri Halliwell (current incarnation). These are prime examples - don't expect to ever look like 'em unless you actually have got limitless time and money and a personal trainer to boot. Muscle weighs more than fat so its easy to lose fat whilst simultaneously building muscle and actually put on weight. For an example of this, Will Carling is almost exactly the same height as me (5' 11'') and weighs about fourteen and a half stone. I weigh just over thirteen stone. I've got too much fat and he hasn't. What he's got is muscle. If you're doing this 'losing fat, gaining muscle' stuff throw away the scales and get yourself a tape measure or, better still, a full length mirror. Be patient. One other often overlooked benefit of exercise: You get to stand very close behind lots of very fit girls in stretch lycra. If you're lucky they'll be bending over. This will increase your heart rate without going anywhere near the Concept II rowing machine, believe me. So, eat the right balance of stuff. Mostly protein and carbs a little fat from the right source (see below), all as fresh and as uncooked as possible. The more different colours the better - reds, greens and yellows. All the natural stuff. Some fats (omega 3 fat from nuts and seeds and omega 6 fats from oily fish - sardines, tuna, mackerel) are good (essential actually) in moderation. Get on yer bike. Keep pedalling. Read a book called Optimium Nutrition by a bloke called (I think) Patrick Holford. I had this book once but then I lent it to my girlfriend so she could 'firm up' a bit. She did - then she went off with the gym instructor taking my book with her. Don't diet - ever. Just eat healthily and exercise moderately to hard. Be patient. Shag like crazy - remember the endomorphin argument. That's the theory. As for me - well unlike the rest of you I have no desire to either look like a B-list celebrity or live forever. I do what I feel like and just let nature take care of the rest. That's why I'm a fat wheezy bastard who'll probably be dead before you can say 'Holland and Barrett.' That reminds me - vitamin and mineral supplemements. Use 'em. Meditation and yoga or some such. Do 'em - especially the meditation one. Mens sane in corpore sano. That's a healthy mind in a healthy body to those of you less cultured than my classically educated self. Joke - as if you hadn't guessed. Like I've got a healthy mind? Give me a break, will ya? Bloody hell, sorry for the lecture thingy. What an out and out patronising bastard I am.

heads to the last ten entered page to look for a short story to read.

how 'bout i smoke like the chimney i am and drink massively like i already do. As for shag a lot best leave that alone for the moment had a dangerous spell which has led to more pain than gain....although some weight loss! Still not a fat bastard..eat like a horse (not in the way that i eat grass from fields and can only move my mouth sideways)...and physical exercise and myself are for from well acquianted. Please explain.and don't say i'm a lucky bastard because i'm not i am fairly neurotic and have complexes about everything. Looking great is clearly a curse and being this modest is just such hard work......... What the hell was that? clearly my alter ego........honest.....

I think teenage girls and young 20's are getting thinner!!! (me excluded lol) I cant get over the size 6 waists that hang round the bars in town.....

it's only the skinny ones in the bars. The rest are in Tescos. *guffaws* When I lived in Poland, the locals, especially the women, were always making observations like: Americans are very health conscious, aren't they? Much more so than here, aren't they? and the best one: American women are all so thin and althletic aren't they? It was a real exercise in self-control, for which I am not well known, to keep from falling down laughing at this. I told them that all of this health-conscious stuff and the skinny athletic women business was largely confined to television and movies. There is, yes, a small segment of the American population that fits this description, but it is very small. It appears large only because that is what is shown on TV all the tme, especially on the programs and movies that make it to Europe. I'm not so sure they ever really believed me. Until, that is, one of them actually visited the U.S. Then they understood.

I spent quite a lot of time recently in Santa Monica - the groovy bit of Los Angeles. The people there are, by and large, (Ha Ha), miniscule waisted, heavily biceped (Men) or enormously breasted (clearly surgery enhanced - Women). Very few people walked anywhere. They jogged or power walked along the beach path. There was a wonderful beach with very few people on it - no bars, no dinky little cafes, no soul. Then I took my daughter to Disneyland one day. Then I found the big people - and when I say big, I mean big. One person got on a ride, the queue moved forward ten feet! We're nowhere near those people - but watch it, we're moving that way. Could murder a pint - but it's water for me for now! Pip pip.

Some good advice there John L... nice one. * starts meditating about what hes gonna eat *

Psychadelic birdseed, Funk?

I think it's a case of 'the hole in the face being bigger than the hole in the arse' !

Well, there aren't so many fat people out there. I weigh 205 pounds and I'm well above the average. And besides, what health Americans (especially Kansans) lose from overeating healthy people in New York, Los Angeles, and London lose from having to breathe all that pollution. So I'm not sure if living in a city, being able to walk all over the place will be much of a help in the long run!

Whooosh, times change. I'm no L.A. expert, but Santa Monica used to be a set-piece comic's joke, as I recall. Something about little old ladies, blue hair, tennis shoes. It wasn't just Pasadena. It was also known for the Santa Monica Freeway, but Freeways are the true holy sites of L.A. They sit in traffic and pray to God for a clear way forward. Then again, I haven't been to L.A. since 1979. That was the tail end of the Rod Stewart "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" era. Most people took one look at me and said NO, so I left. Changes in Santa Monica aside, your experience is a good proxy for the rest of America. There is a small percentage of "hardbody/bionicboob" types, and the rest just huff and chuff from one parking lot to the next.