On Feb 10, 7:42 pm, "teachrmama" wrote:
"Caleb" wrote in message

ups.com...



2-10-07
265/245/200
Day 41 and still 20 pounds gone.

I got on my scale this morning and saw that I was still at 245 -
although pretty close to 244 - so still 20 pounds gone. Had about 1400
calories yesterday and about 1100 today (it's now about 7 PM) and so
I'm doing pretty well following my low-calorie approach. All I have to
do is just keep doing what I'm doing!

Tomorrow I'm going walking up my hill in the morning.

I have 2 numbers on my watchband - 41 over 20 - indicating that this
is day 41 and I've lost 20 pounds. I showed the numbers today to
several psychologists (there was a terrific local conference) and they
expressed great interest in this approach. (I was also asking a poster-
presenter about her research on bariatric surgery patients. Numbers on
a watchband sure beat gastric surgery.)

I certainly do agree with you about numbers on a watchband vs bariatric
surgery. I was reading a thread in another group about people who had had
bariatric surgery who regained the weight. One person said that her doctor
told her that 40% of people who have gastric bypass regain the weight within
5 years. 50% of those who have lap band regain the weight within 2 years.
That is just plain scarey! Why go through all that if it isn't going to be
a permanent solution?

Teachrmama --

The person I was talking to yesterday said that weight regain is a
huge problem for such surgery.

I've thought about the implications of the surgery in the past and I
think that one of the things that the surgery does -- at least for a
while -- is to consequate overeating behaviors. That is, initially it
is painful for people to overeat. However, over time, overeating
becomes less and less painful and the person tends to eat more and
more. Too bad there is no buzzer that screams, zaps one, etc., when
the person has consumed 2000 calories a day.

Reminds of the Roman vomitoriums -- although Wikipedia suggests that
such places were largely apocryphal. Supposedly there were rooms set
up so people could eat and eat and then throw up and eat some more.
But according to Wikipedia: "A popular misconception is that the
Romans made use of a room called a vomitorium for the express purpose
of vomiting between meals to make room for more food. Only a very
small minority of the highest classes indulged in the practice of
deliberately vomiting. A vomitorium is actually an entirely unrelated
architectural feature - a passage situated below or behind a tier of
seats in an amphitheatre, an exit through which the crowds could "spew
out" at the end of a show."

Sometimes animal research is informative. There was one early study (I
forget who did it) which activated the hunger center of rats. So by
pressing a bar, a rat could make itself hungry. The researchers
continued to give the rat ordinary tasting rat-chow day after day,
etc. But then they gave the rat a large amount of really good tasting
food (I'm not sure what it was - liver or something like that) and the
rats ate to the point they felt full, and then pressed the little bar
to make themselves hungry again, and they proceeded to eat more and
more.

I agree with Kelly Brownell of Yale University on this - we live in a
food-toxic environment, at least it is food-toxic for many of us who
overeat. At the same time, we are cautioned time and time again about
not under eating, not missing a meal or several meals, as though three
meals a day was stamped into us by God rather than the dairy and farm
industries, by citrus growers, by Kellogg's, etc. I think if one
looked at populations around the world who can maintain healthy eating
habits even if they have an overabundance of food, one of the things
one sees is a limitation of the variety of foods they eat. On the
other hand, in the US, over the last 3 decades, the number of snack
foods has exploded, the number of fast food places has mushroomed,
and portions are now oftentimes 5 times what they were before.

I think there is also a tendency to ratchet meals up, and maybe we
agree to meet with this person for breakfast, that person for lunch,
our good friend for dinner, and maybe go out for drinks with another
person. Or engage in mindless eating in front of the TV. Or (as I have
become more and more aware of myself), having a beer and then scouting
out the fridge when I go down for another beer. Even if the total
calories of beer is not high, getting the beer is chained with opening
the fridge and checking out the shelves. If I want to have a beer, I
should have an ice-chest and keep it separate from other foodstuffs.

Too bad about the surgery, though. You are right! It's not a panacea
and there are some major downsides to it.

Yours truly,

Caleb