"Concordia" wrote in message
...
Really? Ever heard of a basal metabolism test? In any case, someone
not knowing their precise current metabolism does not prevent them
from eating less and losing weight.

Isn't renting a man sized calorimeter for a day a bit expensive? Besides, it
will only give you a value for that day, that's pretty useless. And that
would be a pretty useless value anyway, it's not like you would have any
reliable data to use to match your food with it, calorie tables are all but
reliable...
Trying to match a complex biological process with elementary school
mathematics is not going to bring you anywhere. It's like a T1 diabetic
trying to mimick a pancreas with his insulin shoots, it's close to
impossible to get a perfect match.

The mecanism that regulates that in normal people is just broken,
for psychological or physical reasons, in obese people.

Before we go any further in this discussion, define these mechanisms.

As a regulated person, if you eat as much as you feel like, your weight
remains stable. If for some reason you eat too much and gain weight, you
will feel less hungry and get satiated sooner, until you snap back to your
set weight. All this without feeling any hunger, since hunger *is* the
regulation system. So, a normal well regulated person does not have to work
at keeping a constant weight. Actually, moving away from it is an enormous
amount of work for some of them (just check how much work some actors have
had to gain and lose weight beyond their normal stable weight).
On the other hand, many obeses, for one reason or another, are unable to do
that.

As a normal person,
you have don't even have to think about losing weight,

You're making an assumption here that I've never been overweight.
This is not the case.

So, how did you lose your weight? Was it easy or effortless? And for how
long have you maintained? Are you positive you will be able to maintain for
life? Did you ever suffer from eating disorders or were you just the average
over-eater? This can make a world of difference... Also, are you aware of
how normal regulated people eat?
The fact that to you losing weight was effortless doesn't mean it is the
case for everyone. For most obeses, it isn't. On the other hand, maintening
a constant weight *is* effortless for well regulated slim people.

maintaining a proper weight is a natural function of your body.
Just like inflating and deflating your lungs is something you perform
automatically without paying attention.
For various reasons, obese don't have this nice option. It's not like
there
is any positive action on your part to remain slim.

For the most part, it is a myth that thin people in general do not
watch what they eat. Metabolism varies, but not to the significant
extent that some people would have you believe. This has been proven
time and time again in peer reviewed studies.

Who talked about metabolism? The regulation happens reguardless of
metabolism changes, fortunately, otherwise everyone would be obese (or too
thin).
And it's not a myth that thin people have to watch what they eat. If they
are properly regulated (here, I'm excluding people who stay slim because
they are on a permanent diet), they don't have to watch what they eat, since
they stop being interrested in food once they have eaten enough. If you try
to make these people gain weight, it becomes increasingly harder since lack
of interrest turns into dislike and nausea. If you stop force-feeding them,
they will slowly return to their normal weight, through lack of interrest in
eating much. Nowhere in the process does it involve watching what they it,
or for that matter, doing anything conscious. Nor does it involve anything
about their metabolism. Nor do they eat special food to do that, like
everyone else, they are able to lose weight on anything, including potato
chips. Just like most infants who are breastfed are able to manage their
inputs themselves to stick to the proper growth curve; they're certainly not
counting calories.

You don't get the point. A huge majority of obese people would rather be
slim. Except they can't.

Sure they can; no one said it was easy. It's matter of choosing to
eat less than the body burns and stick with it. There are no
shortcuts.

Again, are you familliar with binge eating? Do you know how it feels to wake
up in the morning only to discover you have raided the fridge while you were
"sleeping"? Do you know how it feels to black out and return to reason with
9000 calories worth of food in your belly?
Dieting is not a simple process. It's not like when you quit smoking and you
just have to stop smoking cigarettes just because you don't want to smoke
anymore. You can't stop eating altogether. You have to deal with large
psychological issues too, and peer presure sometimes (some people often do
not want you to lose weight).

You are being repetitive here; I've already spoken to this point more
than once. See below where I've mentioned the importance of a proper
eating plan.

But you still miss my point. It's your proper eating plan that *has* that
85% failure rate! If you know of any "plan" with a higher success rate, by
all mean, publish it and get rich!

I wouldn't disagree that schools could certainly do a better job.
However, I think it's rather foolish to hold the schools solely
responsible for the welfare and education of children.

I don't hold them solely responsible. Noone is solely responsible, the whole
issue is too complex for that. It's a problem of shared responsabilities
between the schools, the doctors, the government, the famillies, the
individuals...

No, they told them "here is a cure for you", and people believed them.

Please be more specific. What cures are you referring to?

The low fat diet. The FDA pyramid. The balanced diet. The low carb diet
(which will probably become official sooner or later).

Huh? I am clearly advocating a sensible eating plan that can be
followed for life (and finetuned as necessary), not a quickie weight
loss method. This was stated before, read further down in the post
where I had mentioned just that.

Yes, like many doctors and the government has done before you. Except it
doesn't work much better than most fad diets. Weight loss is roughly the
same on most kind of restrictive diet. And long term success rate is around
the same too. There are small variations from one diet to another, but it's
not really significant. If you look at long term successes, you have people
on your kind of diet *and* people on quickie VLC crash diets.
The fact that you say that a diet should last for life doesn't make it work
any better. If people stop following it because of some inner flaw, they
just stop following it. Nowadays, every single diet claim it should be
followed for life, from balanced diets to Atkins to Dunkan to the Pineapple
diet or whatever.

You're being repetitive again. Asked and addressed.

Not really. I still don't know what you diet is. And I still don't see why
this miracle diet is supposed to work any better than all the existing
diets.

Even when everyone, including your doctor and the government, tells you
to,
because it's healthier for you?

Please list some of the specific foods you are talking about.

Margarine, which was advertised as healthy food. Low fat (whatever), which a
lot of doctors tell you is better than regular options. Protein powders that
a lot of of dietitians will actually tell you to use...

The human being is not a
machine. Knowing something and rationnally reacting to it is not
something
we do easily.

Well, duh. That in no way negates taking responsibility for our own
wellbeing, instead of trying to place blame elsewhere.

We're talking about an epidemia here, how you or I handle our particular
problem is actually pretty irrelevant. When dealing with an epidemia, you do
*have* to take into account psychological issue if they play any significant
role in the statistics. In that case, they play an enormous role.

Besides, it might have helped if nutritionists and governemnt had *said*
that simple fact. But they didn't. They blamed obesity on pretty much
everything, except excess calories.

Nonsense. The majority of mainstream nutritionists have always taken
a position that calories matter. So has the government (here).

When did the FDA create their pyramid then? Why the campain about cutting
fats? Why do most diabete or likewise official documents recommend cutting
fats? If calories are all that matter, why don't they just write it down?

Lack of exercise doesn't make people obese.

In and of itself, it does not. But it certainly helps in weight loss
and maintenance. As I mentioned before, weight training is
particularly beneficial in building and maintaining muscle mass.

I know. It does help you after you lost weight. But it didn't make you gain
weight in the first place. There are plenty of slim people with barely
enough muscles to move from the couch to the bed.

Do you understand the role of lean muscle mass in metabolism, or do I
need to spell it out for you?

I do understand it, except I don't see the point. As long as your metabolism
is within the norm (that is, you burn more than 1200 calories a day), who
cares how high or low it is? Naturally slim people are able to maintain
weight on a low metabolism. No study has shown obese to have any specific
kind of metabolism. Some obeses are much lower than the average (mostly
those who have dieted a lot), but others are much higher than the norm
(mostly those who never dieted).

If you've really got your head stuck in the sand that far, and can't
see how people have free will and ultimately make their own choices
about how they treat their bodies, there's not much point of
explaining it to you yet again.

No , I don't believe people have free will when they have to go through a
bunch of misinformation and conditionning. Conditionning is especially bad,
since you're usually not even aware of it.

Sure I do. I've lost weight and kept it off. I've also had the
unfortunate experience of failing at diets. But do go on.

No thank you. I don't believe in beating the same old path that has failed
time and time again. If something fails repetitively, it's probably that
that something is flawed. And I believe that diets are flawed, because of
the very way they are built and their ignorance of basic psychological
issues. Sometimes, people do happen to lose weight and maintain long term,
but I tend to think they did *despite* their diet.
So, I'm trying something else. Seems to work so far, and at least it doesn't
make my life miserable.

- and it means hard work.

Lol, didn't I just mention hard work above?

So, obeses should work a lot harder than normal people, just to achieve
equality with them at something normal people do not even have to think
about... Isn't that what social security is supposed to be all about? You
know, the whole "we will give you equal chances so you can compete" and
all...