Installment 20...
Thyroid: my High School football coach
When I was a sophomore in High School, one of the varsity football coaches happened to walk by during a practice. He had to weigh well over 300 pounds, if not closer to 400 pounds. He had a fatty kind of fat that wrinkled and had a cottage cheese effect on his skin. I remember the guys in our huddle looking at him as he walked past the football field and one of the guys making the comment, rather respectfully actually, that "He has thyroid problems". Since that time I have heard all about glandular problems, and other excuses for morbid obesity that just don't wash. I am not saying people's body chemistries are all the same. Some people have slower metabolisms, some metabolize fat or carbohydrates better, some have more active and inactive glands, but when all accounting is complete one fact is inescapable. Calories in and calories out is the final arbiter. You cannot gain weight without eating. You cannot metabolize fat out of thin air. In order to gain weight you must have a caloric surplus. In order to lose weight, in the long term anyway, you must have a caloric deficit.
That's just the long and short of it. You can be tactful, and diplomatic, and say someone has a gland problem to mitigate someone's responsibility for their obesity, but they ate the food and consumed the calories that got them to that place, any actual medical condition notwithstanding.
So while it's possible to be sympathetic to one's plight when it comes to weight, sometimes there is a very well defined line between sympathy and enabling. I won't argue with anyone who says they are fine with their weight and don't want to lose any weight. But I won't swallow the line that people throw out excusing their weight and their responsibility for it.
Age and Weight Loss
I am not one who uses age as an excuse either. Without being unreasonable, I don't think there are age limits for anything. This is especially true for weight loss. But I will say this, by 50 years old your weight patterns are nearly permanent. I have noticed that as I got out of my teens that my athletic abilities waned and continued to do so. I noticed that in my mid to late 20s I just couldn't keep up with guys just a few years younger than me. As the next couple of decades came I not only lost a step in speed and power, I lost a couple or more, and I found it so much easier to be sedentary, and harder to be active in the kinds of activity that were aerobic. I'm not sure about endurance, I think that ability wanes much less quickly. I assert that from my own experience and from observing octogenarians participate in marathons, triathlons and the sort. I have also noticed in the later 40's that injuries are much easier to come by. Little tweaks and sprains and pains can appear seemingly out of nowhere. Then the time it takes for a particular injury to heal has become increasingly long. some injuries seem to nag along not getting any better for weeks up to months at a time. While it is true that letting an injury rest will allow it to heal faster, sometimes in doing so you will destroy or eliminate your exercise habits. Sometimes it is possible to work around an injury by changing workouts, but sometimes not. Sometimes it is possible to continue working right through the pain of injuries while they heal. You must be very in tune with your body to discriminate the type of pain that will further injure an injury, and the pain that will not. Also if in doubt there should be no reservations about consulting with a physician. I have also noticed the time it takes to get out of shape aerobically has lessened with age, and the time to get back in aerobic shape has increased. I say all this to say that for the vast majority of people, if they have any serious plans for weight loss they should implement their plans and have them established as habits by the time they are 50. After that, while it is possible to accomplish weight loss goals, it becomes like trying to tread water while holding an anchor. Obviously 50 is a moving target. For some it will be a younger age, others an older one. I use 50 as an approximation, but I would caution against using that figure as a means to procrastinate. I would also caution against using that or any other age as an excuse.