Has anyone here seen the show Secret Eaters from the UK? If not, you totally should. The whole third season is on YouTube. Eye opening stuff.
Never fails- put something up on body size, no matter how delicately, andâ
Most people will turn it into a defense of themselves, their weight, their fitness, their horse choices.
How do you know when a rider is too heavy for a horse? Well, when the rider mounts, if the back drops, the horse staggers, and maybe even grunts, thatâs a good indication! Doesnât need a scientific exam, all you need are eyes and a conscience.
I donât care how much the rider assures me that they are fat and fit, they are too heavy for the horse!
I feel really bad for these people, I truly do, but I just canât have them hurting my horses. I know how difficult it is to lose weight once you are so heavy, and how few people succeed at it. But I just canât have them hurting my horses, even with the best of intentions.
Let me give a few of you a clue about fat people having control over what we eat. I have PCOS. It has screwed up my hormones pretty badly. I overproduce insulin. Having too much insulin tells the body to store everything as fat. It also caused inbalances in other hormones such as Follicle stimulating hormones and lutinizing hormones. Basically by having such hormone inbalances I was constantly hungry. Like really really hungry. I would eat low-carb and when I say low-carb I mean NO pasta, cereals, bread, rice,sugar or starchy vegetables. I ate no fruits and drank no fruit juices or sweetened beverages. I drank water, iced tea or diet soda. I could lose some weight and put it right back on. Most of my meat was grilled- not fried, not drowned in a fattening sauce.
I exercised with a personal trainer for years, multiple times a week including riding.
I was on prednisone for 2 years for an auto immune disease. Well that was good for 40 pounds of weight gain. I am sure that being on a steroid for 2 years did a number on things but it beat the probability of needing a liver transplant.
I did psych counseling, I did nutritional counseling, I kept food diaries. I had multiple professionals look at my activity levels and food intake and not understand why I was as heavy as I was. I canât tell you the level of frustration I had when I would starve myself for a months, exercise consistently and maybe lose 1 or 2 pounds a months. No I was not eating so little to put myself in starvation mode but being constantly hungry it sure felt like it.
18 months ago I had bariatric surgery. They removed 85% of my stomach. The stomach produces ghrelin which is a hunger hormone. So in addition to only being able to eat 6 ounces at a time I essentially do not get hungry. It is the first time in 20 years that I wasnât hungry 2 hours after I last ate.
I still have 20 pounds I want to lose. I am a size 10 pants/size M top. I am 5â3" and 150. I lost 106 pounds so far. I really donât eat much differently than I did prior to WLS but now that I am not hungry all the time I can eat less. It is still low carb. I do eat the occasional fruit now, never fruit juice. I still have essentially no simple carbs. About once a month I might have cheese and crackers but I only eat Triscuits. I splurge and eat 4 or 5 crackers. I figure Triscuits are about as whole grain as you can get. On my surgeonâs plan I am allowed limited whole grains.
I eat 62 grams of protein per day minimum. I drink a minimum of 64 oz of water. I actually average 80-90 oz. The only thing I eat other than meat/dairy/eggs is non-starchy vegetables. I am still struggling to lose those last 20 pounds. From so many years of dieting, from prior medications, from the PCOS my metabolism is probably permanently screwed up.
Losing weight is not as simple as some people make it seem.
As far as BMI it is a fine starting point for most people. However it does not work for everyone. Here are few articles about where it isnât a good measure for everybody.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-belk/body-mass-index_b_7693450.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/2597/1/Body-Mass-Index-Chart-Wrong.html
As far as metabolism if it wasnât such a big deal then why do people frequently gain weight after menopause even if their eating/exercise doesnât change?
Letâs bring this back to horses. You can have 2 TBs that are the same height and same length (blanket size). They are turned out in the same field and have pretty much the same workload. Yet one horse is that hard keeper that you need to feed much more than that other TB to maintain the same body score as that other horse. Do you think metabolism doesnât play a role in that?
My 6 year old lab is 78 pounds, my 14 year old retired foxhound is 54 pounds. The lab gets more exercise that the foxhound. The vet thinks both of them are a good weight. They are fed the same food and the same amounts to maintain a vastly different weight. The lab even gets more exercise than the foxhound yet still eats the same amount to maintain an even weight.
If weight was as simple as calories in/calories out then those two TBs should be able to eat the same diet and maintain the same weight. There is no way the more active lab and the couch potato foxhound should eat the same amounts yet be able to maintain such different base weights.
[QUOTE=Cascades;8698103]
Has anyone here seen the show Secret Eaters from the UK? If not, you totally should. The whole third season is on YouTube. Eye opening stuff.[/QUOTE]
daring to step in to the flames but this is what i thought alsoâŠexplains a lot of responsesâŠ
[QUOTE=HSS;8698138]
How do you know when a rider is too heavy for a horse? Well, when the rider mounts, if the back drops, the horse staggers, and maybe even grunts, thatâs a good indication! Doesnât need a scientific exam, all you need are eyes and a conscience.[/QUOTE]
Yes, most of us would agree with that. But how often does that happen? Is that whatâs happening in the case of the OPâs school horses? Are her school horses tinier and more delicate than the typical horse? Or are the riders sheâs concerned about really so large as to affect typically sized horses in a negative way? If either is the case, then any trainer ought to do something.
But there are people here implying that 200, 205, 210 pounds is too much weight for riding a typical horse.
Tickleflight posted a link to data and research that indicated horses can carry without much affect up to 30 percent of the horseâs body weight. Some were affected by 25 percent, but some were not affected by 30 percent. The determining factors were loin width and canon bone size. So even a shorter horse who is light weight is stronger than a similarly sized horse, if the first horse has a broader back and thicker legs.
So IMO the bottom line is that: Yes, of course, some people can be too heavy for the horse theyâve chosen to ride. It depends on the pair-- rider size and skill, as well as horse delicacy and proportion.
But: No, itâs not as frequent an occurrence as some horse people believe it to be, and, in many cases, the people who think â200 pounds is fatâ may be bringing their own prejudices into the equation. People often decide that what looks unappealing visually is harming a horse, when it is not.
Itâs also evident that many posters here know no larger-than-average men who ride horses. Or else they have no idea what typical, athletic men weigh.
Just as an example, this athlete is 6â3 and weighs 245. This is enormously fat to many posters in this thread. Unable to ride a horse, way over the cutoff for many COTH posters, despite the research linked by tickleflight. Just impossible to be this large, disgusting, and ought to be 7 feet tall, not 6â3". Shouldnât even think about going on a hired trail ride with his wife and kids. Shouldnât take up riding after he retires, heâs simply too fat for it.
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/52572806/
This equine athlete is somewhere around the 200 pound limit, perhaps over, which for many is over the line for a typical horse.
http://www.dressage-news.com/?p=11768
This, for many, is an overload nearing the 250-pound mark and to be condemned:
Except that the horse has no problem carrying that load. Why is that? 100+ pounds above what some here weigh, being carted around by a horse, with no problem? How can that be?
Is it possible that the visual picture and the perception of what âlooksâ pleasing, is cited as a determining factor, in place of actual unbiased observation and some basic understanding of equine biomechanics?
I think that sometimes, that is the case.
[QUOTE=SonnysMom;8698172]
Let me give a few of you a clue about fat people having control over what we eat. I have PCOS. It has screwed up my hormones pretty badly. I overproduce insulin. Having too much insulin tells the body to store everything as fat. [/QUOTE]
That isnât how insulin works. At all. Ask anyone with diabetes.
It also caused inbalances in other hormones such as Follicle stimulating hormones and lutinizing hormones. Basically by having such hormone inbalances I was constantly hungry. Like really really hungry. I would eat low-carb and when I say low-carb I mean NO pasta, cereals, bread, rice,sugar or starchy vegetables. I ate no fruits and drank no fruit juices or sweetened beverages. I drank water, iced tea or diet soda. I could lose some weight and put it right back on. Most of my meat was grilled- not fried, not drowned in a fattening sauce.
I exercised with a personal trainer for years, multiple times a week including riding.
Your hormones may have been messing with your hunger signals, but you were the one eating the food. True or false - if you had stopped eating altogether, would you have lost weight? You canât create fat out of thin air. If you can, you are a scientific miracle and should get thee down to the nobel committee, because you are the solution to world hunger.
I was on prednisone for 2 years for an auto immune disease. Well that was good for 40 pounds of weight gain. I am sure that being on a steroid for 2 years did a number on things but it beat the probability of needing a liver transplant.
Prednisone is a beast, thereâs no denying that.
I did psych counseling, I did nutritional counseling, I kept food diaries. I had multiple professionals look at my activity levels and food intake and not understand why I was as heavy as I was.
More likely, they were saying that if you were being honest about your intake, you shouldnât be as heavy as you were. But self reporting of calories in/calories out is notoriously unreliable. See that show Secret Eaters that I mentioned.
I canât tell you the level of frustration I had when I would starve myself for a months, exercise consistently and maybe lose 1 or 2 pounds a months. No I was not eating so little to put myself in starvation mode but being constantly hungry it sure felt like it.
Starvation mode is not a real thing. There was a morbidly obese man that took part in a study where he ate literally nothing. Nothing. For a year. By the end of the year, he was a healthy weight. Starvation mode is not real.
I still have 20 pounds I want to lose. I am a size 10 pants/size M top. I am 5â3" and 150. I lost 106 pounds so far. I really donât eat much differently than I did prior to WLS but now that I am not hungry all the time I can eat less. It is still low carb. I do eat the occasional fruit now, never fruit juice. I still have essentially no simple carbs. About once a month I might have cheese and crackers but I only eat Triscuits. I splurge and eat 4 or 5 crackers. I figure Triscuits are about as whole grain as you can get. On my surgeonâs plan I am allowed limited whole grains.
I eat 62 grams of protein per day minimum. I drink a minimum of 64 oz of water. I actually average 80-90 oz. The only thing I eat other than meat/dairy/eggs is non-starchy vegetables. I am still struggling to lose those last 20 pounds. From so many years of dieting, from prior medications, from the PCOS my metabolism is probably permanently screwed up.
You are more likely still over-consuming calories. It isnât hard to do. Your metabolism is very unlikely to be âscrewed upâ.
Losing weight is not as simple as some people make it seem.
It really is, though.
As far as BMI it is a fine starting point for most people. However it does not work for everyone. Here are few articles about where it isnât a good measure for everybody.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-belk/body-mass-index_b_7693450.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/2597/1/Body-Mass-Index-Chart-Wrong.html
http://i.imgur.com/KasQHWC.jpg
As far as metabolism if it wasnât such a big deal then why do people frequently gain weight after menopause even if their eating/exercise doesnât change?
Their diet and exercise levels do change, though. Portion creep is a thing.
Letâs bring this back to horses. You can have 2 TBs that are the same height and same length (blanket size). They are turned out in the same field and have pretty much the same workload. Yet one horse is that hard keeper that you need to feed much more than that other TB to maintain the same body score as that other horse. Do you think metabolism doesnât play a role in that?
More likely, one TB is more active than the other. Hotter horses tend to be harder keepers because they never stop moving. They pace, they play, they fret, they spook more frequently, etc⊠Thereâs a reason quieter personality types tend to be easier keepers.
My 6 year old lab is 78 pounds, my 14 year old retired foxhound is 54 pounds. The lab gets more exercise that the foxhound. The vet thinks both of them are a good weight. They are fed the same food and the same amounts to maintain a vastly different weight. The lab even gets more exercise than the foxhound yet still eats the same amount to maintain an even weight.
If weight was as simple as calories in/calories out then those two TBs should be able to eat the same diet and maintain the same weight. There is no way the more active lab and the couch potato foxhound should eat the same amounts yet be able to maintain such different base weights.
Size differences, activity level differences, etc⊠can explain all of this. It is as simple as calories in/calories out. Again, you cannot create energy (fat) from thin air. You just canât.
It really isnât hard to overeat. Itâs not like you have to be eating ridiculous amounts of junk to gain weight. If you overeat by 500 calories a day (I think we can all agree that that would be easy to do?), you will gain 52 lbs in a year. Thatâs 104 lbs in two years. Not hard to do, at all.
It is as simple as calories in/calories out for 99% of the population. 70% of the population is overweight or obese. But that doesnât have to be true.
[QUOTE=DressageChic2;8698177]
daring to step in to the flames but this is what i thought alsoâŠexplains a lot of responsesâŠ[/QUOTE]
Yes I am definitely hiding hamburgers under my couch and shoving my mouth full of chocolate when DH isnât looking. It couldnât possibly be a severe, motion limiting injury that was casted for 6 months followed up with a year plus of undiagnosed illness topped off with metabolism issues.
[QUOTE=tabula rashah;8698250]
Yes I am definitely hiding hamburgers under my couch and shoving my mouth full of chocolate when DH isnât looking. It couldnât possibly be a severe, motion limiting injury that was casted for 6 months followed up with a year plus of undiagnosed illness topped off with metabolism issues.[/QUOTE]
I think you missed the point of the showâŠ
Those people were eating way more than they realized. They werenât being deliberately sneaky about anything.
I donât think any of this applies to people with actual medical disorders or physical issues.
The fact that several posters (Cascades and FatDinah included) disregard well published evidence that BMI is not an infallible obesity indicator, ignore quantifiable evidence and studies that many horses can carry more than 200lb, deny the fact that there are hormone disorders and metabolism disorders that contribute to weight gain, and go so far as to suggest that medications and certain illnesses do nothing to contribute to weight gain⊠Well, that shows how much weight you should give their contributions. Pun intended.
Apropos of nothing wrt OPâs quandary.
Getting back to the OPâs issue- I am perfectly fine with someone saying, no, you cannot ride this horse because it canât carry your weight comfortably. Not that I would need anyone to point this out to me because I am diligent to the extreme about it (besides the fact that if Iâm riding someone elseâs horse theyâre paying me to do so 
) What I am very not fine with is someone running their mouth telling me I should just eat less or move more or take X pill and it will solve all my weight problems. You cannot know why someone is heavy and unless they make it your business, mind your own beeswax on that front.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8698278]
I donât think any of this applies to people with actual medical disorders or physical issues.[/QUOTE]
? too heavy is too heavy, no matter the reason, if you ask me.
No one is denying there are many reasons for the weight gain, right?
I read an intriguing article a few months ago about the subject of BMI and other indicators. The article showed 3D body scans of people who all weighed 175 lb, but were various heights and measurements and looked very different as a result! Some people looked chubby at 175, others looked fat, and some even looked slim even though in the latter case the person wasnât very tall. A lot of it had to do with how much muscle the person had.
[QUOTE=beowulf;8698281]
The fact that several posters (Cascades and FatDinah included) disregard well published evidence that BMI is not an infallible obesity indicator, ignore quantifiable evidence and studies that many horses can carry more than 200lb, deny the fact that there are hormone disorders and metabolism disorders that contribute to weight gain, and go so far as to suggest that medications and certain illnesses do nothing to contribute to weight gain⊠Well, that shows how much weight you should give their contributions. Pun intended.
Apropos of nothing wrt OPâs quandary.[/QUOTE]
I could say the same about you.
BMI is used in the medical community because it is a useful metric. Of course outliers exist, but they are rare.
Hereâs the thing - I went from obese to a healthy weight. I lost 80 lbs in 8 months. It wasnât luck. It wasnât magic. I just realized that I was responsible for my weight. I was fat my whole life and I used to believe the same things you do. But I am living proof of the things that I say.
If anyone is interested in continuing this discussion, or in links to resources re: weight loss, Iâm happy to continue via PM. I donât think I need to continue junking up OPs thread, however.
Bottom line - live your life however you want. Choose your choices, as they say. 
[QUOTE=SendenHorse;8698301]
? too heavy is too heavy, no matter the reason, if you ask me.
No one is denying there are many reasons for the weight gain, right?[/QUOTE]
Of course, but every time you talk about weight it seems like %99 of people have a medical disorder that makes it impossible to lose weight. It is really amazing how many people have metabolic disorders. There are obviously people who do have medical or physical reasons that cause weight gain but how many people have self diagnosed and use it as an excuse?
As far as the weight a horse can carry, thatâs going to depend on the rider and the situation.
Lots of smallish reining and working quarterhorses are ridden by middle-aged men who are carrying a few pounds, but are beautiful, life-long, balanced riders.
Putting any beginner rider up to bounce around on your horse is hard on the horse. Lesson horses get sore and cranky even from being bounced and kicked all day by 85 pound tweens. Put up a full size adult, or an overweight adult, and the wear and tear is going to be even worse. And many lesson horses are a bit older themselves, and have to be managed to a certain extent.
Most horses arenât going to groan and collapse the minute the heavier person hits the saddle. I think you are going to have to look for more subtle signs in the way the horse is going, or just decide to be pro-active and assign the right horses to the right people.
[QUOTE=enjoytheride;8698353]
Of course, but every time you talk about weight it seems like %99 of people have a medical disorder that makes it impossible to lose weight. It is really amazing how many people have metabolic disorders. There are obviously people who do have medical or physical reasons that cause weight gain but how many people have self diagnosed and use it as an excuse?[/QUOTE]
Ok, I see what you mean.
Metabolic issues often respond VERY well to treatment, at least in my POVâŠ
A story:
My dog gained weight, a lot of weight, but when she was treated with insulin and thyroid (and very strict amt of calories) she hasnât had a weight problem since.
People arenât as disciplined, perhaps? 
I loved the examples Silverbridge used. Most of the men I have dated were over 200 lbs yet most of them were fairly thin, with varying amounts of muscle either from their sports, the gym, or work which involved a lot of lifting. They were also mostly quite tall.
This thread has made me VERY glad I am short so I donât have to deal with the judgers constantly. Iâve had multiple close friends show surprise when they find out my weight - and they tell me they thought I was in the 130-140lbs range because of my chub but short stature. Iâm still well below the 200lbs mark, though, so Iâm safe from being banned from riding!
But seriously - Iâm mostly laughing at the implications metabolism has no effect. As a kid I was severely underweight with big health issues because of it. I was constantly trying to force myself to eat more. I do have a large frame, as at 90 lbs I was a size 8-10, with my ribs and other bones all sticking out. When I started college at 18 my body finally decided I was allowed to put on weight. I stayed the same size as I put on 30lbs. I was still slightly underweight at 125 lbs and 5â1". I ate less in college because I couldnât afford to eat as well as I had when my parents were buying my food, and was about 135 lbs at graduation. In my mid-20s my weight started creeping up, so I started watching what I ate. I just generally tried eating better without measuring and started doing gym time for an hour plus an hour of walking daily. I kept putting on weight. I measured my food and discovered I was eating about 1000 calories/day. Not really enough! My mom was diagnosed with diabetes right around when I turned 30, and I started cooking for both of us. She lost 50 lbs in 6 months eating my diabetes-based mostly vegetable diet⊠and I put on another 10 lbs. I mentioned earlier in the thread that my doctor has repeatedly tested trying to figure out why I donât lose weight, and I think itâs all wacky metabolism with something underlying which is as yet undiscovered. Same as when I was unable to put on weight and looked like someone was starving me as a kid. Iâm certainly eating ridiculously less food now!
But I do think metabolic changes are not unusual, even if not as severe as my issues swinging from one direction to the other. I will say, though, I am FAR healthier now than I was when I was too thin. Back then, I had no energy reserves so any cold or extreme physical effort made me sick for days or weeks at a time. Iâm also more fit now than I have been most of my life despite being healthier. I want to lose weight, and am going to go see a dietician to see if thereâs anything else I can do food-wise, my doctorâs leaving so Iâll see if my new doc has other ideas, and will keep trying. But no, itâs NOT that simple for everyone.
More apropos of nothing musingsâŠ
Most cutting, reining, and western disciplines have saddles that top the scale at 15-30lb⊠pop the saddle blankets on there (another 5lb) and youâre already looking at over 20lb at least before the horse is even mounted⊠unless those men are all under 200lb, thereâs a lot of horses doing very fast maneuvers with 220lb+ on their backs.
And those horses, as a general rule, are not much bigger than 15hâŠ
Makes for a very interesting and eye-opening afterthought, considering the posters that said if youâre over 200lb you shouldnât be riding⊠Guess nearly all the men that ride should pick up golf or some other hobby⊠:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Cascades;8698022]
Iâm not trying to lecture anyone. And when I use âyouâ Iâm addressing the general âyouâ, not a specific poster. I realize that fat people know they are fat. What Iâm addressing is the statements about BMI and metabolic disorder and all of the other excuses. If youâre happy being fat, good for you, itâs none of my business. But on a public bb, where someone struggling with their weight might be reading, I think itâs important to combat the idea that itâs impossible to lose weight. It 100% isnât.
You are in control of your weight, for better or for worse, and whether you like it or not. How does a statement of fact make me an insensitive jerk?[/QUOTE]
I love it when people take a brief break from their lecturing to say that they arenât lecturing anyone. And whether youâre talking to me or to the generic you doesnât matter.
The point, again, is that you arenât saying anything that every single overweight person doesnât already know. You arenât helping. At all.
And you are putting up a strawman justification for your lecturing. Nobody said itâs impossible to lose weight. What people are trying to say is that there are lots of factors that affect body weight and that affect the individualâs ability to/ease of exercising and dieting. There are also genetic factors and disease states that affect how your body handles the food you do consume. Like, e.g. the mouse study where mice with a particular gene mutation gained weight even when consuming the exact same feed and number of calories on which mice without the gene mutation maintained a steady weight.
Losing weight is an individual process. Many people need to address underlying physical or emotional issues as part of the process. âEat less and exercise more,â while physiologically correct, is not the whole solution for most people. And hearing strangers on the internet insist repeatedly that if you only had the good sense and willpower to push away from the table and step onto the treadmill you would lose weight just reinforces the feeling many overweight women have of being damaged and ânot good enough.â And, again, it doesnât help. And it makes you (generic) an insensitive jerk.
