RW: What ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ Gets Wrong About Running While Fat

Don't run a marathon if you're fat.

The writer, who is a fat runner herself, seems mad that Brittany loses weight during the movie.

But I want anyone who aspires to run a marathon—no matter how unlikely it seems—to know that a before-and-after is not required. You are not temporary and your body is not the villain.

Sounds like the title of a children's book, not a movie.

xcvxc wrote:

The writer, who is a fat runner herself, seems mad that Brittany loses weight during the movie.

The writer is Kate Browne, Ph.D. (@drkatebrowne) is a pop culture writer who specializes in body image and digital media. She is the creator of Taking Up Space, a blog about marketing tactics in the health, wellness, and fitness industries, and VP of Communication for the Body Positive Fitness Alliance.

Body positivity movement is one of the biggest mindfucks out there. Even more so when people with PhDs are supporting it.

It is one thing to be comfortable in your skin and overweight it is another to be promoting obese confidence rather than a healthy lifestyle. Obesity creates a huge medical bill for every taxpayer to foot.

I understand not all fat people can control their weight, but I don’t see what is preventing most “body positive athletes” from shedding some weight while changing their diet. It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

.InjuryProne. wrote:

It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

your stupidity is showing.

Why would anyone here have any interest in the Runners World take on anything? Oh yeah…

english professer wrote:

.InjuryProne. wrote:

It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

your stupidity is showing.

No, he makes plenty of sense. Barring food allergies or some other mitigating factor, this would help.

english professer wrote:

.InjuryProne. wrote:

It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

your stupidity is showing.

Eat under maintenance with a mix of good fats/protein high fiber and HR training. Not difficult.

Takes self control that is.

Priding yourself on being a fat runner has to be the stupidest thing ever.

Priding yourself in being a runner sure.

But the fat aspect, big nope. That just means you aren’t fully committed. Which isn’t that bad in itself I do plenty of things im not fully committed to, but why would I pride myself on not fully committing?

I don’t pride myself on only golfing a few times a year.

I fully understand the whole body positivity thing. My niece is overweight due to a medical condition. She has a condition that causes low muscle tone and she literally cannot exercise. She has done a lot to control her weight through healthy eating. But she will never have anything approaching the kind of body that a lot of young women aspire to have. She shouldn't feel bad about how she looks. And a lot of women are in a similar position as child birth and other conditions can make it very difficult to control weight.

But absent a real medical issue, if an overweight woman adopts a healthy diet and trains for a marathon, she will lose weight. The idea that this is not an accurate picture of what happens when you exercise and eat well is just silly. The problem is that people like the RW writer consider her version of running to be synonymous with what everyone does. It is not. Going out and training just enough to be able to complete a marathon in 7-8 hours is not the same as someone who goes out and trains to constantly be improving their times (or for us older folks, keep from losing too much time). It is basically like the difference between someone who goes to the gym and does the same workout with 5 lb hand weights v. someone who is progressively adding weight and doing lots of different lifting routines. The former will see no results and the latter will. But the 5 lb person gets all bent out of shape if you say that they are not a weight lifter and claim that everyone who lifts weights will see results.

Fat people should not run marathons wrote:

xcvxc wrote:

The writer, who is a fat runner herself, seems mad that Brittany loses weight during the movie.

The writer is Kate Browne, Ph.D. (@drkatebrowne) is a pop culture writer who specializes in body image and digital media. She is the creator of Taking Up Space, a blog about marketing tactics in the health, wellness, and fitness industries, and VP of Communication for the Body Positive Fitness Alliance.

She seems like she's very keen on everyone knowing she's fat and she's okay with that. Everyone else was too but she takes it personally and believes they didn't so she has to convince herself that they weren't until she was okay with it

She also shows that running is very easy (and thus you might not loose weight) and thus you don't have to loose weight to run slow and fails to realize you have to work at it to lose weight. I don't lose weight despite running 100 mpw because my intake = my outtake. So I eat more than her and am 'skinny'.

Fat people should not run marathons wrote:

xcvxc wrote:

The writer, who is a fat runner herself, seems mad that Brittany loses weight during the movie.

The writer is Kate Browne, Ph.D. (@drkatebrowne) is a pop culture writer who specializes in body image and digital media. She is the creator of Taking Up Space, a blog about marketing tactics in the health, wellness, and fitness industries, and VP of Communication for the Body Positive Fitness Alliance.

I found her website, about what you'd expect:

"A Short List of Notable Facts:

She/Her pronouns

PhD in English Studies

Writes about body image + pop culture (special place her heart for writing about narratives of body size on television)

The Golden Girls, the first academic book on the sitcom of the same name, forthcoming May 2020 from Wayne State University Press"

The great thing about the United States of America is that there is literally an interest group out there that will take issue with something. Hollywood produces an inspirational movie about someone who decides to lead a healthier life... Issue: It doesn't fairly represent all overweight runners.

.InjuryProne. wrote:

Body positivity movement is one of the biggest mindfucks out there. Even more so when people with PhDs are supporting it.

It is one thing to be comfortable in your skin and overweight it is another to be promoting obese confidence rather than a healthy lifestyle. Obesity creates a huge medical bill for every taxpayer to foot.

I understand not all fat people can control their weight, but I don’t see what is preventing most “body positive athletes” from shedding some weight while changing their diet. It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

There's a saying where I work, and it's "They're just a PHD". PHD doesn't mean that someone knows best, just that they have an expensive degree and wrote a paper once. She's not a PHD in any medical field either so her advice is beyond dangerous.....

advocating for no diets is wrong, advocating against fad diets I can stand by but not in general

"The overwhelming wave of joy when you catch your first glimpse of the people who love you in the crowd. Those are the things that being a runner is all about."

She is the definitive voice on what "being a runner is all about." Do not argue with her on this; she is correct. Running has nothing to do with competition or winning or running fast. It is all about seeing people you love in the crowd.

.InjuryProne. wrote: It really isn’t that difficult to train your body to become fat adopted for its main energy source especially as one’s natural metabolism begins to slow down.

Assuming you mean "adapted", you're correct, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with losing fat from your body.

I assumed if a running site was citing her PhD it was in a medical field I didn’t look into the woman’s background. So my mistake.

Also I’m not sure the diet advice I listed was anything of a fad. I’m not talking about ketosis. I’m advocating people adopt their diet based upon their needs.

There are plenty of studies that show as we age we become less dependent on carbs as an energy source and more fat dependent.

Someone who is overweight and eating excess carbs that will not be used for energy in their running goals is a waste and counter productive to losing weight.

I could go into the benefits of other “fads” like time restricted eating but I don’t think they are necessary to achieve a healthy diet it’s just something I’ve implemented with great success over the past 15 years.

Wait, are you telling me a fictional movie is not an exact representation of reality? How is that even legal?