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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 10:56:37 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote: "spahks" wrote in message ... Obesity is a self induced condition. Your corollary would be accurate only if someone suffered a broken leg because they repeatedly hit their own femur with a sledge hammer. Unless you have bone cancer (which is probably your own fault, you exposed yourself to too many pollutants or something), legs don't break on their own. You probably took some risks you should not have (skiing, running, not paying attention to what you were doing, climbing down your stairs, crossing the street...) or you did not eat enough calcium or didn't practice musculation in your teenage years to strenghten your bones. If you go deep enough, you're eventually responsible for almost everything. It is logical and productive behaviour to go about the normal business of life. Folks have to move around to get to work, take care of their families, maintain their properties, engage in social discourse, and exercise. On the other hand, eating more than the body will burn is almost always an illogical, non life affirming action. And it is a choice. Mind you, I'm personally not condemning the individual right to make the choice to continue to overeat, though I think it's a sad one. As long as overweight and obese folks are willing to accept the health and $$ consequences of their choices and not engage in political or social control measures in an attempt to place blame/costs elsewhere or demand acceptance as a "protected" class -- it's none of my business. Unfortunately, there are organizations that want to do just that. As a side note, to the extent that injuries result from known high risk activities such as bungee jumping or skydiving for example, participants generally and rightfully bear the burden of their responsibility (financially) for those activities, as most insurance will not cover treatment. Not sure about the skiing. People don't just "Get Obese". They make themselves so. So, you think people who made themselves obese when they were two years old are responsible for their condition? Good point. However, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one must and will assume current and ongoing responsibility for the problem. Attempts to assign blame after the fact are rather useless and frequently counterproductive. You think that people who have a deficient thyroid are responsible for their own thyroid? What about the responsability of the school cafetarias which feed junk food to the kids? It's probably the kids responsability, they should seek a job and cook their own food... A school lunch is only one meal a day. Furthermore, even if the foods aren't ideal, they are usually portion controlled. More importantly, what are the kids doing, learning, and eating at home? Many people do not make themselves obese alone, they do so with the help of the government and their doctor. Government and doctors don't shovel food into a person's mouth, people do. The best way to become a super-obese is through yo-yo dieting after all. Many people started their way towards obesity by merely being healthy overweights and starting a diet. Which is all the more reason to adopt a lifetime eating and exercise plan, instead of yo-yo dieting. For example, weight training is an excellent way to build and maintain lean muscle mass. What about improper city planning that leaves plenty of areas with *only* junk food available? Where are these areas where one has _absolutely_ no access to lean meats and produce by walking, driving, or catching a bus to a proper market? Or what about the FDA that has let every traditionnal food be replaced with a look-alike junk version of it? Don't eat it. What about "official" dietitians that have been clueless for ages and have broadcast, with government approval, recipes to *become* obese masquerading them as "healthy" eating? Certainly, having access to accurate nutritional information is helpful, especially with all the food choices available today. However, people have known for eons that eating more than is burned by the body will cause weight gain. No one ever needed government or nutritionists to point out this simple fact. There is a reality : obesity on such a scale just didn't exist a mere century ago. Or even twenty years ago. So, something must have happened. Lack of exercise due to increased modernization, more variety of and access to convenience foods, unfortunate cultural shift away from value systems that emphasize the value of personal responsibility and hard work. (remainder snipped) |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
"Concordia" wrote in message
... On the other hand, eating more than the body will burn is almost always an illogical, non life affirming action. The problem is that most obese have no way of knowing how much their body will burn. The mecanism that regulates that in normal people is just broken, for psychological or physical reasons, in obese people. As a normal person, you have don't even have to think about losing weight, 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. And it is a choice. Mind you, I'm personally not condemning the individual right to make the choice to continue to overeat, though I think it's a sad one. You don't get the point. A huge majority of obese people would rather be slim. Except they can't. I mean, ask most obese people. Over the course of their life, most have lost more weight than your total weight. It's not a matter of willpower. Most obese can beat you on that. Just try to stop eating and see how long you last and how you feel - well, most obese people are able to function with that level of hunger for months at a time. Actually, you do have an advantage. If you stop eating, hunger will disappear as you start to starve. If you diet, it won't. As a side note, to the extent that injuries result from known high risk activities such as bungee jumping or skydiving for example, participants generally and rightfully bear the burden of their responsibility (financially) for those activities, as most insurance will not cover treatment. Not sure about the skiing. That's not the case here. You do get an insurance with some sport licenses, but healthcare will cover it anyway. But we do have "socialized" health care. Good point. However, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one must and will assume current and ongoing responsibility for the problem. Attempts to assign blame after the fact are rather useless and frequently counterproductive. Usually, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one just fails and gains even more weight as a bonus. That's the statistical truth. 85% of the diets fail within 5 years. Not because 85% of the dieters lack willpower, but because diets don't work as a long term cure for obesity. Do you blame people with cancer for their cure not working? I mean, they had their one chance at a cure, and now, they managed to get cancer *again*, and they want yet *another* cure! A school lunch is only one meal a day. Furthermore, even if the foods aren't ideal, they are usually portion controlled. More importantly, what are the kids doing, learning, and eating at home? The role of the school is to educate the children. Despite the poor education their parents are giving them if it needs to. Obviously, schools are failing to educate the youth of your nation properly about their eating habits. You might think it's not your problem, but how long do you think the system can work this way? Do you think society will hold together with 50% of obese? 80%? 99%? 99% of super-obese? When things take epidemic proportions, it becomes the responsability of the nation to deal with them... Many people do not make themselves obese alone, they do so with the help of the government and their doctor. Government and doctors don't shovel food into a person's mouth, people do. No, they told them "here is a cure for you", and people believed them. But the cure happened to be worse than the disease. When this happens with a drug, it's customary for people to try to sue the hell out of the manufacturer. The best way to become a super-obese is through yo-yo dieting after all. Many people started their way towards obesity by merely being healthy overweights and starting a diet. Which is all the more reason to adopt a lifetime eating and exercise plan, instead of yo-yo dieting. For example, weight training is an excellent way to build and maintain lean muscle mass. That's the "lifetime" eating plan that is causing the yo-yo dieting. You were thinking I was talking about fad diets? There is no difference between fad diets and the so-called balanced diet. Both work rather well at making people lose weight. Both have a high failure rate at the 5 years mark. And both trigger a rebound that can result in a net weight gain. People do not chose to yo-yo diet. They just chose to diet. They pick a diet that seems to work for people, that has good advertising (if something is a fraud, shouldn't it get banned from the medias?), that is FDA approved or that their doctor told them to follow. And then, like most diets, that diet eventually fails, and they gain some more weight. Then, one of the few options not to yoyo would be to discontinue any diet and live happily at their current weight. But then, you would call them lazy people who should pay for their self inflicted condition... So, many obese people go through yet another diet, that will also fail, and will push them to even higher extreme. And so on... Or what about the FDA that has let every traditionnal food be replaced with a look-alike junk version of it? Don't eat it. Even when everyone, including your doctor and the government, tells you to, because it's healthier for you? Certainly, having access to accurate nutritional information is helpful, especially with all the food choices available today. However, people have known for eons that eating more than is burned by the body will cause weight gain. No one ever needed government or nutritionists to point out this simple fact. People have known for eons that being happy is better than being sad, but this doesn't prevent depressions from happening. Do you suggest depressive people should just be happier and stop depending on expensive drugs? People have known for eons that stress is bad for their health, yet they keep going to work daily. People have known for eons that air pollution is becoming our #1 health risk, yet most still drive their car. The human being is not a machine. Knowing something and rationnally reacting to it is not something we do easily. 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. It's because of the fats, or the carbs, or the water, or the salt... Because blaming it on the calories alone would mean blaming it on consumption. At the root of our economic systems is the idea that consumming more is better. If all the obese and overweight in the world stopped consumming so much and just ate what they need (instead of tons of light food), the food processing industry would just collapse. Lack of exercise due to increased modernization, more variety of and access to convenience foods, unfortunate cultural shift away from value systems that emphasize the value of personal responsibility and hard work. Lack of exercise doesn't make people obese. As you pointed out, it's eating too much that does. I don't see what hard work and personal responsability has to do with the deal. Unless you have spent any significant amount of time fasting in your life, you have no idea what dieting really means - and it means hard work. Besides, the USA is still the country in the world where "personal responsability and hard work" is at its highest. Yet, it's also the country in the world with the highest ratio of obese. On the other hand, highly socialized country, where we are not supposed to value these as much, still have a much lower obesity ratio. That seems counter-intuitive. Sure, we have access to more variety in food. But there again, facts do not fit. The average American eats a very poorly diversified diet, with an average of 5 different products a week. France reaches 15+ different products a week. Yet, obesity in France is a new and limited epidemia while it's explosive in the USA. |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 15:58:05 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote: "Concordia" wrote in message .. . On the other hand, eating more than the body will burn is almost always an illogical, non life affirming action. The problem is that most obese have no way of knowing how much their body will burn. 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. 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 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. 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. And it is a choice. Mind you, I'm personally not condemning the individual right to make the choice to continue to overeat, though I think it's a sad one. 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. (snip) As a side note, to the extent that injuries result from known high risk activities such as bungee jumping or skydiving for example, participants generally and rightfully bear the burden of their responsibility (financially) for those activities, as most insurance will not cover treatment. Not sure about the skiing. That's not the case here. You do get an insurance with some sport licenses, but healthcare will cover it anyway. But we do have "socialized" health care. Okay, our system in the states is somewhat different. I see you are in France. My point was that these people engaging in the high risk activities are rightfully bearing the burden of their choice of activities. Remember, one of your initial premises was that everything is a risk to some extent, and you attempted to equate the responsibility of injury from required and productive daily activities such as walking, crossing the street, etc., to the risks associated with overeating. Good point. However, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one must and will assume current and ongoing responsibility for the problem. Attempts to assign blame after the fact are rather useless and frequently counterproductive. Usually, if one wants to lose and keep off excess weight, one just fails and gains even more weight as a bonus. That's the statistical truth. 85% of the diets fail within 5 years. Not because 85% of the dieters lack willpower, but because diets don't work as a long term cure for obesity. Do you blame people with cancer for their cure not working? I mean, they had their one chance at a cure, and now, they managed to get cancer *again*, and they want yet *another* cure! 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. A school lunch is only one meal a day. Furthermore, even if the foods aren't ideal, they are usually portion controlled. More importantly, what are the kids doing, learning, and eating at home? The role of the school is to educate the children. Despite the poor education their parents are giving them if it needs to. Obviously, schools are failing to educate the youth of your nation properly about their eating habits. 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. (snip) Many people do not make themselves obese alone, they do so with the help of the government and their doctor. Government and doctors don't shovel food into a person's mouth, people do. No, they told them "here is a cure for you", and people believed them. Please be more specific. What cures are you referring to? But the cure happened to be worse than the disease. When this happens with a drug, it's customary for people to try to sue the hell out of the manufacturer. The best way to become a super-obese is through yo-yo dieting after all. Many people started their way towards obesity by merely being healthy overweights and starting a diet. Which is all the more reason to adopt a lifetime eating and exercise plan, instead of yo-yo dieting. For example, weight training is an excellent way to build and maintain lean muscle mass. That's the "lifetime" eating plan that is causing the yo-yo dieting. 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. You were thinking I was talking about fad diets? There is no difference between fad diets and the so-called balanced diet. Both work rather well at making people lose weight. Both have a high failure rate at the 5 years mark. And both trigger a rebound that can result in a net weight gain. See above. People do not chose to yo-yo diet. They just chose to diet. They pick a diet that seems to work for people, that has good advertising (if something is a fraud, shouldn't it get banned from the medias?), that is FDA approved or that their doctor told them to follow. And then, like most diets, that diet eventually fails, and they gain some more weight. You're being repetitive again. Asked and addressed. Then, one of the few options not to yoyo would be to discontinue any diet and live happily at their current weight. But then, you would call them lazy people who should pay for their self inflicted condition... So, many obese people go through yet another diet, that will also fail, and will push them to even higher extreme. And so on... Or what about the FDA that has let every traditionnal food be replaced with a look-alike junk version of it? Don't eat it. 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. Certainly, having access to accurate nutritional information is helpful, especially with all the food choices available today. However, people have known for eons that eating more than is burned by the body will cause weight gain. No one ever needed government or nutritionists to point out this simple fact. People have known for eons that being happy is better than being sad, but this doesn't prevent depressions from happening. Do you suggest depressive people should just be happier and stop depending on expensive drugs? People have known for eons that stress is bad for their health, yet they keep going to work daily. People have known for eons that air pollution is becoming our #1 health risk, yet most still drive their car. Again, your red herrings won't fly. You've tried it with the broken bones, the cancer, etc. Either address the points or get off the pot. 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. 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). (snip) Lack of exercise due to increased modernization, more variety of and access to convenience foods, unfortunate cultural shift away from value systems that emphasize the value of personal responsibility and hard work. 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. Do you understand the role of lean muscle mass in metabolism, or do I need to spell it out for you? As you pointed out, it's eating too much that does. I don't see what hard work and personal responsability has to do with the deal. 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. Unless you have spent any significant amount of time fasting in your life, Actually, I fast two days a month. I have never done it for an extended period of time, though. you have no idea what dieting really means 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. - and it means hard work. Lol, didn't I just mention hard work above? Besides, the USA is still the country in the world where "personal responsability and hard work" is at its highest. It's not nearly as high as it once was, though. That was my point "unfortunate cultural shift away from..." (snip) |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
"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... |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 00:24:38 +0200, "Lictor"
wrote: "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? One can go and get a test done. A university affiliated hospital would be a good place to start. Your premise was that it is rather hard to know what the metabolism is. I provided an example of how one could find out. Besides, it will only give you a value for that day, that's pretty useless. And that would be a pretty useless value anyway, Not really. A test would aid in ruling out hypothyroidism (not common) and also put to rest any concerns that the metabolism is generally low. A complaint by many obese is that metabolism is sluggish and that is why they cannot lose weight. This has been proven time and time again not to be the case, both through metabolic tests and also by controlled conditions where the patient is hospitalized and put on a medically supervised diet. There are the occasional exceptions, but not enough to be significant in accounting for overweight in general. Also, if one were to have a basal metabolism test performed bi-weekly or monthly over a statistically significant period of time, and graph the results, metabolism would not generally be all over the place. There would be a somewhat of a distribution of results assuming one stayed at a similar weight and activity level. Do you dispute this? it's not like you would have any reliable data to use to match your food with it, calorie tables are all but reliable... Sure, I don't doubt that calorie tables may be inaccurate to some nth degree of precision. But that certainly does not rule out _any_ value they may have in providing a basis about what and how much to eat. Thanks to calorie tables, it's pretty clear that a pound of sausage has more calories than a pound of salmon. 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. A perfect match is not necessary short-term. It is a long-term attempt at a match or deficit that matters. You obviously understand this concept, and have alluded to it below when suggesting "regulated" people self-correct overeating by subsequently eating less to make up for it (which I somewhat disagree with). 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. On the other hand, many obeses, for one reason or another, are unable to do that. There seem to be very few of these naturally thin "regulated" people floating around in the states. I've heard that this may differ a bit in France (does it really?). If so, what do you attribute the difference to? Almost without exception, even the thin folks here have to watch what they eat. 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? I initially eliminated a significant amount of carbs by following Atkins induction, then gradually reintroduced complex carbs in the form of vegetables and the occasional fruits as I went along. I also began lifting weights regularly and swimming laps -- and find these to be rewarding and enjoyable activities. Today, I do not follow Atkins, but still generally watch starches and processed foods in general. The primary basis of my diet is lots of fresh vegetables and meats (fowl, seafood, red meat), with some fruits and nuts as snacks. I occasionally have a glass of red wine or a martini with or after dinner. I also cook a lot and also grow some of my own vegetables and herbs. Was it easy or effortless? It was initially extremely difficult, but gradually became much easier over time. And for how long have you maintained? A few years now. Are you positive you will be able to maintain for life? Sure, it is up to me. Last year, I hurt an ankle and was still able to keep from gaining weight. Did you ever suffer from eating disorders or were you just the average over-eater? I used to binge eat at least a couple of times a week and could wolf down an entire large pizza (and much more) in one sitting easily. I also overate in general on a fairly consistent basis. At the time, I rationalized it somewhat and wasn't completely honest with myself about what I was doing or the calories consumed. This can make a world of difference... Also, are you aware of how normal regulated people eat? Again, I just don't buy your premise that there are many of these "well regulated" slim people running around that have never had to give a conscious thought to what they eat. This is not what I am seeing in the states. What are you observing in France? How many of these folks do you see percentage wise and how do they eat? The fact that to you losing weight was effortless Not the case; see above. 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. I don't think it is effortless for the vast majority of people. Most of the "naturally" thin people I know will tell you (if they are honest) that they will occasionally pass on dessert and second helpings, _consciously_ decide to have a light dinner if they ate a lot for lunch, etc. What's funny is now that I am thin, people occasionally comment on what and how they seem to think I can get away with eating, based on their limited observation. Especially other women. People see what they want to see. I don't doubt that there are some folks out there that absolutely never have to consciously watch what they eat. It just seems rare based on my observations and honest discussions with other people. (snip) Again, are you familliar with binge eating? See my answer above. 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? How many folks out there percentage wise do you seriously think eat while they are sleepwalking? (snip) 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. Won't work unless calories and portions are controlled. No diet will. This is common sense. If someone really thinks they can sit around and eat excessive portions of a bunch of low fat junk food, they are a victim of their own stupidity. The truth is out there and has been out there for quite some time. The FDA pyramid. The pyramid recommends way too many starches and is also an oversimplistic model -- I've always thought that. The balanced diet. The low carb diet (which will probably become official sooner or later). I actually eat a fairly low carb diet, and it seems to work fairly well. But I don't buy that low carb somehow magically permits people to consume an unlimited amount of calories. And I've had the common sense to know that since I was an adolescent and first heard of LC. What I'm seeing here in the states is that this LC "lifestyle" is going much the way of the low fat craze. There's a bunch of processed foods on the market now and people are overeating them. Folks are always looking for the quick fix, and marketers depend on it. People are duped because they play mind games with themselves and choose to believe what they want to believe. That is PRECISELY why I am advocating the crucial role of personal responsibility in all this. As I've stated before, if someone chooses to stay fat, that's fine. Just don't try and place the blame elsewhere. (snip) Please list some of the specific foods you are talking about. Margarine, which was advertised as healthy food. That is a good point about the trans fats. However, I don't think it was part of some great conspiracy or marketing ploy, but rather due to the information currently available at the time. Folks used to think the earth was flat... The labeling could still be improved in some cases when it comes to the whole hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated issue. 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. I don't dispute at all that there is a psychological component. In fact, I think it is a rather significant factor in overeating. 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? It has been written down -- time and time again. People just don't want to listen; they are looking for quick fixes. 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. Adding lean muscle mass increases metabolism. (snip) 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. Learned helplessness never helped anyone improve their circumstances. (snip) So, I'm trying something else. Seems to work so far, and at least it doesn't make my life miserable. How are you eating and what are your particular circumstances? - 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... Life's tough. We all have our problems. Usually, we can only solve our own problems. |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 at 06:19:46, Concordia wrote:
Sure, I don't doubt that calorie tables may be inaccurate to some nth degree of precision. But that certainly does not rule out _any_ value they may have in providing a basis about what and how much to eat. Thanks to calorie tables, it's pretty clear that a pound of sausage has more calories than a pound of salmon. Would that not be clear without calorie tables? There seem to be very few of these naturally thin "regulated" people floating around in the states. I've heard that this may differ a bit in France (does it really?). If so, what do you attribute the difference to? Almost without exception, even the thin folks here have to watch what they eat. When I lived in France as a young adult, I lost over 20 lbs without even trying. And kept them off for years. I think it's due to the very different eating-habits over there - three meals a day, end of. No snacks. None. The concept of the "office stash" is totally unknown - you just don't eat during the day, except at a formal mealtime. The young, who do go to McDonald's, are beginning to get fat. And yes, the majority of people in France still appear to have no need to lose weight - I always feel grotesquely fat when I'm over there, whereas in the USA I feel positively slender! I don't think it is effortless for the vast majority of people. Most of the "naturally" thin people I know will tell you (if they are honest) that they will occasionally pass on dessert and second helpings, _consciously_ decide to have a light dinner if they ate a lot for lunch, etc. What's funny is now that I am thin, people occasionally comment on what and how they seem to think I can get away with eating, based on their limited observation. Especially other women. People see what they want to see. Partly conscious, partly because they are genuinely not hungry for a heavy meal in the evening if they've had a lot for lunch. Or for a pudding if they've had a large main course. That is what us fatties don't have, naturally - a natural appetite regulator. We eat because the food is there, not because we are actively hungry for it. And of course many French women *do* watch their weight, but are discreet about it - and successful! But they have as many health magazines as anywhere else, and they are as full of diet tips as any other.... -- Annabel Smyth http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday snaps! |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
"Concordia" wrote in message
... One can go and get a test done. A university affiliated hospital would be a good place to start. Your premise was that it is rather hard to know what the metabolism is. I provided an example of how one could find out. I wasn't aware you could get free testing this way. This might indeed be interresting to do, for educative purpose. I wish we had done that in science class, might have been fun. However, I doubt it would have any practical use for a dieting purpose. Not really. A test would aid in ruling out hypothyroidism (not common) A blood sample would not *aid* ruling out hypothyroidism, it would diagnose it or not I mean, when there is a direct exam and when it is so cheap it's almost free (like, I paid less than $1 for mine), why not use it? and also put to rest any concerns that the metabolism is generally low. A complaint by many obese is that metabolism is sluggish and that is why they cannot lose weight. That's because of the general misunderstanding people have on this issue. And this includes doctors. Metabolism doesn't matter than much, as long as you match your inputs to it. It's only problematic if it's so low you have to eat only minimum amounts of food. That's when it's time to exercise some. This has been proven time and time again not to be the case, both through metabolic tests and also by controlled conditions where the patient is hospitalized and put on a medically supervised diet. What has been proven is that there is no link between metabolic rate and obesity. But *some* obese do have very low metabolism, lower than normal, either because of crash diets (loss of lean mass) or because of hormnal problems (thyroid mainly). And some are actually higher than normal. Guessing from what I have to eat to maintain, I'm rather into the second category. Which is not a surprise, I have always been muscular, obese or not. Also, if one were to have a basal metabolism test performed bi-weekly or monthly over a statistically significant period of time, and graph the results, metabolism would not generally be all over the place. If you keep a constant weight and keep the exact same level of exercise. And if you're not a woman, periods tend to mess things up. Besides, your intakes have to match basal metabolism + daily activities. So you would have a nice number, but not many useful things to do with it... There would be a somewhat of a distribution of results assuming one stayed at a similar weight and activity level. Do you dispute this? I do have some doubts about women, but no, for men, that would be right. But activity level would still vary, and this can make a lot of difference. And hopefully, weight will be going down too Sure, I don't doubt that calorie tables may be inaccurate to some nth degree of precision. I'm not talking nth degree. You remember that hot summer we had in Europe? Hot and warm. Well, farmers reported a 30% increase in the sugar content of fruits. Likewise, on a bad year, you will have large drops in sugar content. Same for grapes, being on the good side of the hill is a variation high enough that one side will give great wine and the other a crappy barely drinkable beverage. The same applies with a lot of other food. Animals will have varying fat contents, depending on how they were fed (industrial food, grazing...) or kept (savage, semi-freedom, battery). That's a lot of variation you won't find in your calorie table. And I doubt you would have to go to the nth degree of precision to find it. Remember that 5% extra on a 2000 calories diet will give out 36000 calories by the end of the year - that's at least 9 extra pounds... Sure, variations will cancel each others on average, but 5% is a very small margin of error... Thanks to calorie tables, it's pretty clear that a pound of sausage has more calories than a pound of salmon. Sure, a table will do that. It does have an educative value. You don't need a large level of precision to sort food items like this. But you do need that level of precision to keep a stable weight over an extended period of time. It also becomes problematic when you can't control the food, like with exotic stuff, at friends or in a restaurant. How do you get the caloric load of a restaurant meal, if you don't know how it was cooked? Besides, I could have told you that by just eat these food. The same amount of salmon will not give the same lasting satiety as the same amount of sausage... A perfect match is not necessary short-term. It is a long-term attempt at a match or deficit that matters. You obviously understand this concept, and have alluded to it below when suggesting "regulated" people self-correct overeating by subsequently eating less to make up for it (which I somewhat disagree with). Studies have proven that there is a meal to meal compensation, except, again, in obeses. It's also something I experienced personnally. You're also building a system that is a lot more complex than the original biological one. The brain *will* adjust its calorie table. When you feed "light" food to a rat, the brain will adjust the quantities in no more than a couple of days and keep the diet iso-caloric. On the other hand, your calorie table will remain the same even on hot dry years. You're still lacking several levels of flexibility. There seem to be very few of these naturally thin "regulated" people floating around in the states. I've heard that this may differ a bit in France (does it really?). Obesity is rising in France. If we define obesity as BMI30, the 2003 numbers are 11.3% (9.6% in 1997). The overweight or obese population is at 41.6% (36.7% in 1997). Massive obesity (40) is now at 0.6%. I haven't checked the American numbers for a while, I don't know how you compared right now. There are indeed less and less of these people, since it's becoming hard not to be under the influence of a bunch of dietetical advices. You can still find them among kids, some teenagers and still quite a lot of adults. I still do know quite a lot of them though. My father mostly doesn't watch what he eats, and maintains his weight despite completely chaotic levels of physical activities. Don't you find it strange that the more dietetical advice we receive, the more obese we become? As you pointed, most Americans are very conscious about what they eat. Yet, most Americans also happen to be fat. If you go back forty years ago, few Americans cared, yet less of them were fat. If so, what do you attribute the difference to? Almost without exception, even the thin folks here have to watch what they eat. That's actually very scary when you're a Frenchman visiting the USA, especially big cities. Actually seeing fitness shops selling diets products (most of them being illegal here) like they are candies is completely surreal to us. I mean, if I wanted to find such a shop in Paris, I would have to seek in the yellow pages to get the addresses of the handful of them we have. In NYC, it was impossible not to go past one daily. I do think that's one of the key difference. We do watch what we eat - a little. A lot less than you do anyway. Most people *like* eating. Most people have enough respect for cultural eating that eating powdered food is highly depressive to them. But we have been paying more attention to what we eat in the past years. We even have our diet reality show now. But we are now catching up on you quickly... There are of course other factors too. We walk much more than the average American does (except New Yorkers). Many flats also have no elevator, I live at the 6th floor, no elevator, and that's a minimum daily amount of exercise I have no way of doing without. Most famillies don't eat in front of the TV. We don't eat in our cars either. The dinner is still a social meeting for the familly. We don't eat all the time in the streets "as Americans do" (sorry, that's exactly how people would describe it). We drink soda, a little or mostly light - noone would think about drinking a gallon of coke a day. We buy food in small containers, not per the gallon. You can have two people eat from a single entree at a French restaurant - something most French people do when they visit the USA. The supersize deal in French McDonalds is roughly equivalent to the medium menu in US McDonalds, likewise the small French fries we have just doesn't exist in that size in the USA. The first McDonald in France already had salads on the menu, and they were healthier than the new "healthy" salads they are now selling. So, there are cultural differences, and they do play a role (especially since some of these keep us focussed on what we are eating and our feelings - like actually liking the food or not watching TV). But I think the overall attitude towards diet is a good part of the equation. I initially eliminated a significant amount of carbs by following Atkins induction, then gradually reintroduced complex carbs in the form of vegetables and the occasional fruits as I went along. I also began lifting weights regularly and swimming laps -- and find these to be rewarding and enjoyable activities. Today, I do not follow Atkins, but still generally watch starches and processed foods in general. The primary basis of my diet is lots of fresh vegetables and meats (fowl, seafood, red meat), with some fruits and nuts as snacks. I occasionally have a glass of red wine or a martini with or after dinner. So, you started on Atkins, and eventually ended with a "balanced" diet, or something pretty close to what doctors recommend (at least what ours recommend when they don't go crazy on some hyper-proteic ****). This is still a diet that, in itself, has a high failure rate. There are probably other factors that explain your success. Like, I doubt the diet itself solved your bingeing. What did? Did your attitude towards food evolved with time or do you eat like you used to (except in quantities and kind of food of course)? Are you positive you will be able to maintain for life? Sure, it is up to me. Last year, I hurt an ankle and was still able to keep from gaining weight. I'm not too concerned about physical traumas. Most people regain weight from psychological traumas, like a divorce or something that is experienced as emotionaly strongly. The problem is that most diets do not try to prepare you against that. I used to binge eat at least a couple of times a week and could wolf down an entire large pizza (and much more) in one sitting easily. I also overate in general on a fairly consistent basis. At the time, I rationalized it somewhat and wasn't completely honest with myself about what I was doing or the calories consumed. Well, at least, that's something not included in your diet plan : admitting you were over-eating, and even bingeing. When faced with that word, many people go into denial and claim they only have a small problem with food. Do you think you would have been successful if you had kept yourself in denial? Besides admitting what you were doing, did you also come to understand *why* you were doing it? Do you think that knowledge has allowed you to lose that weight? What I'm trying to get at is that most diets only allow people to lose weight. They don't give them any tool to understand why they became fat and how to prevent that from happening again (except by sticking to the diet). Successful dieters seem to be successful because they went beyond the diet and gained understand of how they work. Their success is a consequence of their own introspection, not of the diet itself. Now, if you scale back to the epidemic level, this means going to an all diet approach is bound to failure, because it seems only a small numbers of people are able to make that introspection on their own. Even worse, a lot of energy is devoted to methods that completely obliterate the need to do any kind of introspection : diet pills, surgery, "miracle" diets... Again, I just don't buy your premise that there are many of these "well regulated" slim people running around that have never had to give a conscious thought to what they eat. Well, decent dietetic models are rather recent. If you go back in time, all kind of crap theories were around. Even nowadays, a lot of people do not buy into the caloric explanation! If you do a history of obesity, a lot of things have been blamed for it, not only mere calories : fat, carbs, proteins, water, salt, red meat... Yet, throughout history, a majority of humanity was able to maintain a stable weight. And we haven't been starving much in recent history, nor have we always been exercising ourselves. If you limit yourself to the rich part of the population (plenty of food, not much exercise), obesity was much lower than today. Especially massive obesity. How could these people maintain their weight? By following the dietetic advice of the time? This is not what I am seeing in the states. What are you observing in France? How many of these folks do you see percentage wise and how do they eat? Well, looking around me, I would say roughly 30-50% of the people are still eating normally. My father and mother are. My girlfriend is a recovered overweight lady who is now listening to her instincts and doing well along that way. Of course, the more you tell everyone that they should watch what they eat, the more they will just do that. And this is exactly what we are doing. I mean, I can't live a single day without being submitted to some form of diet information. This is like getting it brainwashed in. How can you explain we *still* have any obese person left with all the information we receive? I don't think it is effortless for the vast majority of people. Well, at least, losing weight has been effortless for me. Even better, it has been more pleasant than eating as an obese, because at least I appreciate what I eat (I used to just throw food down my throat). Most of the "naturally" thin people I know will tell you (if they are honest) that they will occasionally pass on dessert and second helpings, _consciously_ decide to have a light dinner if they ate a lot for lunch, etc. I do often pass on dessert and second helping, because I just plainly do not feel hungry anymore. This is sometimes annoying, since I have thrown to the garbage bin tons of delicious stuff I had bought for dessert (until I figured out how to manage my hunger throughout the various parts of the meal or if I really badly want a dessert, I just start the meal with it). But it's not a conscious effort. I have tried to force myself to eat past the hunger a few time, and it just doesn't taste good without it. But I will make a conscious decision not to take a second helping in order to keep some hunger for the dessert, that one is true. The difference is that the final decision comes from my hunger, it's where the limit is set, not from some artificial conception of where I should stop eating or what I should eat. The difference is that there is no frustration that way, I don't give up something I would have wanted, I give up something I did have to hunger for. What's funny is now that I am thin, people occasionally comment on what and how they seem to think I can get away with eating, based on their limited observation. Especially other women. People see what they want to see. Same here. But that *is* exactly my point. Most people have their mind poluted by information and values from diets. They have their views so distorted that they won't even see reality when it's in front of their eyes. To them, someone who is slim is someone who doesn't eat "bad food". In deep, very few people actually believe in the caloric equation. I can tell them I can eat 100g of chocolate for lunch *and* that I will still lose weight because my caloric balance is in deficit, they will not believe me. Or, worse, they will believe it's some kind of miracle diet that involves eating chocolate in its process. The low fat diet. Won't work unless calories and portions are controlled. No diet will. This is common sense. Totally agreed. But then, why does the doctor asks you to cut fats? I mean, if it's only calories, why the hell should I *also* cut the fats? Why can't I cut a bit of fats and a bit of carbs? Or carbs or fats in various proportion according to my fancy of the day? The problem is that deep down, the doctor doesn't believe in the caloric theory himself. He believes you have to cut fats, and also, almost as an afterthought, cut the calories. But if you don't cut the fats, terrible things will happen. They pay lip service to the caloric balance, but they do believe in the fat is evil dogma with all their might. If someone really thinks they can sit around and eat excessive portions of a bunch of low fat junk food, they are a victim of their own stupidity. Then, I'm sorry to tell you, but a good deal of the American population *is* stupid. I mean, check how much low fat junk food people buy a year... The truth is out there and has been out there for quite some time. But even doctors do not believe in the caloric equations. They believe you should cut some bad foods/nutriments and, also, cut the calories. The FDA pyramid. The pyramid recommends way too many starches and is also an oversimplistic model -- I've always thought that. See? You too... If the goal is to achieve a caloric deficit, why not do it on the FDA pyramid? But you also believe that carbs are bad. Don't you think you can lose weight on eating a large amount of carbs? Do you believe you can't control your appetite if you eat carbs? What I'm seeing here in the states is that this LC "lifestyle" is going much the way of the low fat craze. There's a bunch of processed foods on the market now and people are overeating them. Folks are always looking for the quick fix, and marketers depend on it. That's because noone really believes in the caloric theory. Why? Because we want to lose weight while being able to eat as much as we want? Yes, in many aspects we are a bulimic society. We always want more (cars, food, riches, entertainment, travels...) but we don't want any of it to change us or have consequences (polution, obesity, poors, evolving...). Our attitude towards food only mirror our attitude towards society in general. But I think there's another factor. The caloric theory is amoral. It doesn't matter what you eat and how much you enjoy it, as long as you eat just what you need and with moderation, you will stay slim. There is no evil or good food. That's dietetic atheism. Somehow, the mind of people seem to revolt at that. They want some food to be evil. Even in tiny amounts. They want a price to be paid for pleasure. Do you know the amount of people who are convinced that a single chunk of chocolate can destroy a careful diet? Or how many people actually demand of their dietetian that he puts them on the most strict diet and make them suffer? People are duped because they play mind games with themselves and choose to believe what they want to believe. Yes. The problem is that a huge majority of the people are in that situation. When, as a government, you spend a enormous budget communicating about obesity, seeing that kind of result should call for some brainstorming. And I don't mean creating some new ads. I mean, rethinking the whole strategy. Yet, the only reaction to the fact that it is obviously not working is to spend yet more funds to do the exact same campains, only louder. That is PRECISELY why I am advocating the crucial role of personal responsibility in all this. I still don't think people are responsible. They're not the direct conscious *cause* of their obesity. That's what being responsible means, being guilty of something. I don't think they are guilty of being obese. Nor are they guilty of failing when they try to solve their obesity using the consensual methods. Sure, they *can* help themselves, and the only available tool for that is introspection. Except it's incredibly difficult to access in the current hostile context. You can't blame people for not finding the gold nugget in the pile of dung to pay their healthcare with. As I've stated before, if someone chooses to stay fat, that's fine. Few people do that. Some people just give up trying. Given the statistical net results of diets, I can't blame them. If one has to chose between 5% of chances of losing some weight and 95% of chances of becoming fatter, being cautious and chosing to be as healthy as possible at one's current weight is not a bad choice. Margarine, which was advertised as healthy food. That is a good point about the trans fats. However, I don't think it was part of some great conspiracy or marketing ploy, but rather due to the information currently available at the time. I don't blame conspiracies when I can blame common idiocy. The problem is that, when you are a doctor, you are sworn not to broadcast false informations. Yet, they put everyone on margarine without proper proof that margarine was safe *and* without real proof that butter was unsafe. And it's not an isolated event. Concerning obesity, it's done all the time. Just check the past history of obesity surgery an drugs. How many of these have been released and pulled from the market a few years after because of serious problems with them? Yet, they keep doing it. We still don't know the long term consequences of bypass surgery, but this doesn't prevent a bunch of people (including some with only moderate obesity) from having their body mutilated. I don't dispute at all that there is a psychological component. In fact, I think it is a rather significant factor in overeating. It's a significant factor that gets little coverage in the press or books or even in doctors' office. It also gets little research. A lot more energy is devoted in finding the *genetic* roots of over-eating. What's the likehood that genetics play a large role in the over-eating habits of the majority of the American population? Learned helplessness never helped anyone improve their circumstances. Understanding why you are helpless is the first step on the path to finding a way around it. So, I'm trying something else. Seems to work so far, and at least it doesn't make my life miserable. How are you eating and what are your particular circumstances? Not hungry = I don't eat. Hungry = I eat. Satieted = I stop eating. Whatever I want (or crave for, or feel like eating or however you call it), whenever I want (no set number of meals, no set time, no obligation to eat at any particular meal), as long as I'm hungry. This is of course a little more involved. I get psychological support, I'm supervised by a nutritionnist, I have frquent blood samples, there was a lot of actual work involved in feeling my hunger and satiety and breaking up various food taboos... Initial circumstances, six months ago, were 1m82 for 132kg, with a recently diagnosed diabete and bad lipids. I had a past experience of binge-eating and bulimia, though I took care of this one on my own. Currently, I'm at 108kg. Diabete is in good control (A1c at 5.8%, FG at 1g) and lipids are within the norm. I also stopped my diabete medication a few months ago. Life's tough. We all have our problems. Usually, we can only solve our own problems. We can get help on our way though. Nowadays, most obeses trying to solve their problems have to go *against* the flow (society judgement, dietetic advice, doctors' advice...). |
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"Concordia" wrote in message
... One can go and get a test done. A university affiliated hospital would be a good place to start. Your premise was that it is rather hard to know what the metabolism is. I provided an example of how one could find out. I wasn't aware you could get free testing this way. This might indeed be interresting to do, for educative purpose. I wish we had done that in science class, might have been fun. However, I doubt it would have any practical use for a dieting purpose. Not really. A test would aid in ruling out hypothyroidism (not common) A blood sample would not *aid* ruling out hypothyroidism, it would diagnose it or not I mean, when there is a direct exam and when it is so cheap it's almost free (like, I paid less than $1 for mine), why not use it? and also put to rest any concerns that the metabolism is generally low. A complaint by many obese is that metabolism is sluggish and that is why they cannot lose weight. That's because of the general misunderstanding people have on this issue. And this includes doctors. Metabolism doesn't matter than much, as long as you match your inputs to it. It's only problematic if it's so low you have to eat only minimum amounts of food. That's when it's time to exercise some. This has been proven time and time again not to be the case, both through metabolic tests and also by controlled conditions where the patient is hospitalized and put on a medically supervised diet. What has been proven is that there is no link between metabolic rate and obesity. But *some* obese do have very low metabolism, lower than normal, either because of crash diets (loss of lean mass) or because of hormnal problems (thyroid mainly). And some are actually higher than normal. Guessing from what I have to eat to maintain, I'm rather into the second category. Which is not a surprise, I have always been muscular, obese or not. Also, if one were to have a basal metabolism test performed bi-weekly or monthly over a statistically significant period of time, and graph the results, metabolism would not generally be all over the place. If you keep a constant weight and keep the exact same level of exercise. And if you're not a woman, periods tend to mess things up. Besides, your intakes have to match basal metabolism + daily activities. So you would have a nice number, but not many useful things to do with it... There would be a somewhat of a distribution of results assuming one stayed at a similar weight and activity level. Do you dispute this? I do have some doubts about women, but no, for men, that would be right. But activity level would still vary, and this can make a lot of difference. And hopefully, weight will be going down too Sure, I don't doubt that calorie tables may be inaccurate to some nth degree of precision. I'm not talking nth degree. You remember that hot summer we had in Europe? Hot and warm. Well, farmers reported a 30% increase in the sugar content of fruits. Likewise, on a bad year, you will have large drops in sugar content. Same for grapes, being on the good side of the hill is a variation high enough that one side will give great wine and the other a crappy barely drinkable beverage. The same applies with a lot of other food. Animals will have varying fat contents, depending on how they were fed (industrial food, grazing...) or kept (savage, semi-freedom, battery). That's a lot of variation you won't find in your calorie table. And I doubt you would have to go to the nth degree of precision to find it. Remember that 5% extra on a 2000 calories diet will give out 36000 calories by the end of the year - that's at least 9 extra pounds... Sure, variations will cancel each others on average, but 5% is a very small margin of error... Thanks to calorie tables, it's pretty clear that a pound of sausage has more calories than a pound of salmon. Sure, a table will do that. It does have an educative value. You don't need a large level of precision to sort food items like this. But you do need that level of precision to keep a stable weight over an extended period of time. It also becomes problematic when you can't control the food, like with exotic stuff, at friends or in a restaurant. How do you get the caloric load of a restaurant meal, if you don't know how it was cooked? Besides, I could have told you that by just eat these food. The same amount of salmon will not give the same lasting satiety as the same amount of sausage... A perfect match is not necessary short-term. It is a long-term attempt at a match or deficit that matters. You obviously understand this concept, and have alluded to it below when suggesting "regulated" people self-correct overeating by subsequently eating less to make up for it (which I somewhat disagree with). Studies have proven that there is a meal to meal compensation, except, again, in obeses. It's also something I experienced personnally. You're also building a system that is a lot more complex than the original biological one. The brain *will* adjust its calorie table. When you feed "light" food to a rat, the brain will adjust the quantities in no more than a couple of days and keep the diet iso-caloric. On the other hand, your calorie table will remain the same even on hot dry years. You're still lacking several levels of flexibility. There seem to be very few of these naturally thin "regulated" people floating around in the states. I've heard that this may differ a bit in France (does it really?). Obesity is rising in France. If we define obesity as BMI30, the 2003 numbers are 11.3% (9.6% in 1997). The overweight or obese population is at 41.6% (36.7% in 1997). Massive obesity (40) is now at 0.6%. I haven't checked the American numbers for a while, I don't know how you compared right now. There are indeed less and less of these people, since it's becoming hard not to be under the influence of a bunch of dietetical advices. You can still find them among kids, some teenagers and still quite a lot of adults. I still do know quite a lot of them though. My father mostly doesn't watch what he eats, and maintains his weight despite completely chaotic levels of physical activities. Don't you find it strange that the more dietetical advice we receive, the more obese we become? As you pointed, most Americans are very conscious about what they eat. Yet, most Americans also happen to be fat. If you go back forty years ago, few Americans cared, yet less of them were fat. If so, what do you attribute the difference to? Almost without exception, even the thin folks here have to watch what they eat. That's actually very scary when you're a Frenchman visiting the USA, especially big cities. Actually seeing fitness shops selling diets products (most of them being illegal here) like they are candies is completely surreal to us. I mean, if I wanted to find such a shop in Paris, I would have to seek in the yellow pages to get the addresses of the handful of them we have. In NYC, it was impossible not to go past one daily. I do think that's one of the key difference. We do watch what we eat - a little. A lot less than you do anyway. Most people *like* eating. Most people have enough respect for cultural eating that eating powdered food is highly depressive to them. But we have been paying more attention to what we eat in the past years. We even have our diet reality show now. But we are now catching up on you quickly... There are of course other factors too. We walk much more than the average American does (except New Yorkers). Many flats also have no elevator, I live at the 6th floor, no elevator, and that's a minimum daily amount of exercise I have no way of doing without. Most famillies don't eat in front of the TV. We don't eat in our cars either. The dinner is still a social meeting for the familly. We don't eat all the time in the streets "as Americans do" (sorry, that's exactly how people would describe it). We drink soda, a little or mostly light - noone would think about drinking a gallon of coke a day. We buy food in small containers, not per the gallon. You can have two people eat from a single entree at a French restaurant - something most French people do when they visit the USA. The supersize deal in French McDonalds is roughly equivalent to the medium menu in US McDonalds, likewise the small French fries we have just doesn't exist in that size in the USA. The first McDonald in France already had salads on the menu, and they were healthier than the new "healthy" salads they are now selling. So, there are cultural differences, and they do play a role (especially since some of these keep us focussed on what we are eating and our feelings - like actually liking the food or not watching TV). But I think the overall attitude towards diet is a good part of the equation. I initially eliminated a significant amount of carbs by following Atkins induction, then gradually reintroduced complex carbs in the form of vegetables and the occasional fruits as I went along. I also began lifting weights regularly and swimming laps -- and find these to be rewarding and enjoyable activities. Today, I do not follow Atkins, but still generally watch starches and processed foods in general. The primary basis of my diet is lots of fresh vegetables and meats (fowl, seafood, red meat), with some fruits and nuts as snacks. I occasionally have a glass of red wine or a martini with or after dinner. So, you started on Atkins, and eventually ended with a "balanced" diet, or something pretty close to what doctors recommend (at least what ours recommend when they don't go crazy on some hyper-proteic ****). This is still a diet that, in itself, has a high failure rate. There are probably other factors that explain your success. Like, I doubt the diet itself solved your bingeing. What did? Did your attitude towards food evolved with time or do you eat like you used to (except in quantities and kind of food of course)? Are you positive you will be able to maintain for life? Sure, it is up to me. Last year, I hurt an ankle and was still able to keep from gaining weight. I'm not too concerned about physical traumas. Most people regain weight from psychological traumas, like a divorce or something that is experienced as emotionaly strongly. The problem is that most diets do not try to prepare you against that. I used to binge eat at least a couple of times a week and could wolf down an entire large pizza (and much more) in one sitting easily. I also overate in general on a fairly consistent basis. At the time, I rationalized it somewhat and wasn't completely honest with myself about what I was doing or the calories consumed. Well, at least, that's something not included in your diet plan : admitting you were over-eating, and even bingeing. When faced with that word, many people go into denial and claim they only have a small problem with food. Do you think you would have been successful if you had kept yourself in denial? Besides admitting what you were doing, did you also come to understand *why* you were doing it? Do you think that knowledge has allowed you to lose that weight? What I'm trying to get at is that most diets only allow people to lose weight. They don't give them any tool to understand why they became fat and how to prevent that from happening again (except by sticking to the diet). Successful dieters seem to be successful because they went beyond the diet and gained understand of how they work. Their success is a consequence of their own introspection, not of the diet itself. Now, if you scale back to the epidemic level, this means going to an all diet approach is bound to failure, because it seems only a small numbers of people are able to make that introspection on their own. Even worse, a lot of energy is devoted to methods that completely obliterate the need to do any kind of introspection : diet pills, surgery, "miracle" diets... Again, I just don't buy your premise that there are many of these "well regulated" slim people running around that have never had to give a conscious thought to what they eat. Well, decent dietetic models are rather recent. If you go back in time, all kind of crap theories were around. Even nowadays, a lot of people do not buy into the caloric explanation! If you do a history of obesity, a lot of things have been blamed for it, not only mere calories : fat, carbs, proteins, water, salt, red meat... Yet, throughout history, a majority of humanity was able to maintain a stable weight. And we haven't been starving much in recent history, nor have we always been exercising ourselves. If you limit yourself to the rich part of the population (plenty of food, not much exercise), obesity was much lower than today. Especially massive obesity. How could these people maintain their weight? By following the dietetic advice of the time? This is not what I am seeing in the states. What are you observing in France? How many of these folks do you see percentage wise and how do they eat? Well, looking around me, I would say roughly 30-50% of the people are still eating normally. My father and mother are. My girlfriend is a recovered overweight lady who is now listening to her instincts and doing well along that way. Of course, the more you tell everyone that they should watch what they eat, the more they will just do that. And this is exactly what we are doing. I mean, I can't live a single day without being submitted to some form of diet information. This is like getting it brainwashed in. How can you explain we *still* have any obese person left with all the information we receive? I don't think it is effortless for the vast majority of people. Well, at least, losing weight has been effortless for me. Even better, it has been more pleasant than eating as an obese, because at least I appreciate what I eat (I used to just throw food down my throat). Most of the "naturally" thin people I know will tell you (if they are honest) that they will occasionally pass on dessert and second helpings, _consciously_ decide to have a light dinner if they ate a lot for lunch, etc. I do often pass on dessert and second helping, because I just plainly do not feel hungry anymore. This is sometimes annoying, since I have thrown to the garbage bin tons of delicious stuff I had bought for dessert (until I figured out how to manage my hunger throughout the various parts of the meal or if I really badly want a dessert, I just start the meal with it). But it's not a conscious effort. I have tried to force myself to eat past the hunger a few time, and it just doesn't taste good without it. But I will make a conscious decision not to take a second helping in order to keep some hunger for the dessert, that one is true. The difference is that the final decision comes from my hunger, it's where the limit is set, not from some artificial conception of where I should stop eating or what I should eat. The difference is that there is no frustration that way, I don't give up something I would have wanted, I give up something I did have to hunger for. What's funny is now that I am thin, people occasionally comment on what and how they seem to think I can get away with eating, based on their limited observation. Especially other women. People see what they want to see. Same here. But that *is* exactly my point. Most people have their mind poluted by information and values from diets. They have their views so distorted that they won't even see reality when it's in front of their eyes. To them, someone who is slim is someone who doesn't eat "bad food". In deep, very few people actually believe in the caloric equation. I can tell them I can eat 100g of chocolate for lunch *and* that I will still lose weight because my caloric balance is in deficit, they will not believe me. Or, worse, they will believe it's some kind of miracle diet that involves eating chocolate in its process. The low fat diet. Won't work unless calories and portions are controlled. No diet will. This is common sense. Totally agreed. But then, why does the doctor asks you to cut fats? I mean, if it's only calories, why the hell should I *also* cut the fats? Why can't I cut a bit of fats and a bit of carbs? Or carbs or fats in various proportion according to my fancy of the day? The problem is that deep down, the doctor doesn't believe in the caloric theory himself. He believes you have to cut fats, and also, almost as an afterthought, cut the calories. But if you don't cut the fats, terrible things will happen. They pay lip service to the caloric balance, but they do believe in the fat is evil dogma with all their might. If someone really thinks they can sit around and eat excessive portions of a bunch of low fat junk food, they are a victim of their own stupidity. Then, I'm sorry to tell you, but a good deal of the American population *is* stupid. I mean, check how much low fat junk food people buy a year... The truth is out there and has been out there for quite some time. But even doctors do not believe in the caloric equations. They believe you should cut some bad foods/nutriments and, also, cut the calories. The FDA pyramid. The pyramid recommends way too many starches and is also an oversimplistic model -- I've always thought that. See? You too... If the goal is to achieve a caloric deficit, why not do it on the FDA pyramid? But you also believe that carbs are bad. Don't you think you can lose weight on eating a large amount of carbs? Do you believe you can't control your appetite if you eat carbs? What I'm seeing here in the states is that this LC "lifestyle" is going much the way of the low fat craze. There's a bunch of processed foods on the market now and people are overeating them. Folks are always looking for the quick fix, and marketers depend on it. That's because noone really believes in the caloric theory. Why? Because we want to lose weight while being able to eat as much as we want? Yes, in many aspects we are a bulimic society. We always want more (cars, food, riches, entertainment, travels...) but we don't want any of it to change us or have consequences (polution, obesity, poors, evolving...). Our attitude towards food only mirror our attitude towards society in general. But I think there's another factor. The caloric theory is amoral. It doesn't matter what you eat and how much you enjoy it, as long as you eat just what you need and with moderation, you will stay slim. There is no evil or good food. That's dietetic atheism. Somehow, the mind of people seem to revolt at that. They want some food to be evil. Even in tiny amounts. They want a price to be paid for pleasure. Do you know the amount of people who are convinced that a single chunk of chocolate can destroy a careful diet? Or how many people actually demand of their dietetian that he puts them on the most strict diet and make them suffer? People are duped because they play mind games with themselves and choose to believe what they want to believe. Yes. The problem is that a huge majority of the people are in that situation. When, as a government, you spend a enormous budget communicating about obesity, seeing that kind of result should call for some brainstorming. And I don't mean creating some new ads. I mean, rethinking the whole strategy. Yet, the only reaction to the fact that it is obviously not working is to spend yet more funds to do the exact same campains, only louder. That is PRECISELY why I am advocating the crucial role of personal responsibility in all this. I still don't think people are responsible. They're not the direct conscious *cause* of their obesity. That's what being responsible means, being guilty of something. I don't think they are guilty of being obese. Nor are they guilty of failing when they try to solve their obesity using the consensual methods. Sure, they *can* help themselves, and the only available tool for that is introspection. Except it's incredibly difficult to access in the current hostile context. You can't blame people for not finding the gold nugget in the pile of dung to pay their healthcare with. As I've stated before, if someone chooses to stay fat, that's fine. Few people do that. Some people just give up trying. Given the statistical net results of diets, I can't blame them. If one has to chose between 5% of chances of losing some weight and 95% of chances of becoming fatter, being cautious and chosing to be as healthy as possible at one's current weight is not a bad choice. Margarine, which was advertised as healthy food. That is a good point about the trans fats. However, I don't think it was part of some great conspiracy or marketing ploy, but rather due to the information currently available at the time. I don't blame conspiracies when I can blame common idiocy. The problem is that, when you are a doctor, you are sworn not to broadcast false informations. Yet, they put everyone on margarine without proper proof that margarine was safe *and* without real proof that butter was unsafe. And it's not an isolated event. Concerning obesity, it's done all the time. Just check the past history of obesity surgery an drugs. How many of these have been released and pulled from the market a few years after because of serious problems with them? Yet, they keep doing it. We still don't know the long term consequences of bypass surgery, but this doesn't prevent a bunch of people (including some with only moderate obesity) from having their body mutilated. I don't dispute at all that there is a psychological component. In fact, I think it is a rather significant factor in overeating. It's a significant factor that gets little coverage in the press or books or even in doctors' office. It also gets little research. A lot more energy is devoted in finding the *genetic* roots of over-eating. What's the likehood that genetics play a large role in the over-eating habits of the majority of the American population? Learned helplessness never helped anyone improve their circumstances. Understanding why you are helpless is the first step on the path to finding a way around it. So, I'm trying something else. Seems to work so far, and at least it doesn't make my life miserable. How are you eating and what are your particular circumstances? Not hungry = I don't eat. Hungry = I eat. Satieted = I stop eating. Whatever I want (or crave for, or feel like eating or however you call it), whenever I want (no set number of meals, no set time, no obligation to eat at any particular meal), as long as I'm hungry. This is of course a little more involved. I get psychological support, I'm supervised by a nutritionnist, I have frquent blood samples, there was a lot of actual work involved in feeling my hunger and satiety and breaking up various food taboos... Initial circumstances, six months ago, were 1m82 for 132kg, with a recently diagnosed diabete and bad lipids. I had a past experience of binge-eating and bulimia, though I took care of this one on my own. Currently, I'm at 108kg. Diabete is in good control (A1c at 5.8%, FG at 1g) and lipids are within the norm. I also stopped my diabete medication a few months ago. Life's tough. We all have our problems. Usually, we can only solve our own problems. We can get help on our way though. Nowadays, most obeses trying to solve their problems have to go *against* the flow (society judgement, dietetic advice, doctors' advice...). |
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On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 at 06:19:46, Concordia wrote:
Sure, I don't doubt that calorie tables may be inaccurate to some nth degree of precision. But that certainly does not rule out _any_ value they may have in providing a basis about what and how much to eat. Thanks to calorie tables, it's pretty clear that a pound of sausage has more calories than a pound of salmon. Would that not be clear without calorie tables? There seem to be very few of these naturally thin "regulated" people floating around in the states. I've heard that this may differ a bit in France (does it really?). If so, what do you attribute the difference to? Almost without exception, even the thin folks here have to watch what they eat. When I lived in France as a young adult, I lost over 20 lbs without even trying. And kept them off for years. I think it's due to the very different eating-habits over there - three meals a day, end of. No snacks. None. The concept of the "office stash" is totally unknown - you just don't eat during the day, except at a formal mealtime. The young, who do go to McDonald's, are beginning to get fat. And yes, the majority of people in France still appear to have no need to lose weight - I always feel grotesquely fat when I'm over there, whereas in the USA I feel positively slender! I don't think it is effortless for the vast majority of people. Most of the "naturally" thin people I know will tell you (if they are honest) that they will occasionally pass on dessert and second helpings, _consciously_ decide to have a light dinner if they ate a lot for lunch, etc. What's funny is now that I am thin, people occasionally comment on what and how they seem to think I can get away with eating, based on their limited observation. Especially other women. People see what they want to see. Partly conscious, partly because they are genuinely not hungry for a heavy meal in the evening if they've had a lot for lunch. Or for a pudding if they've had a large main course. That is what us fatties don't have, naturally - a natural appetite regulator. We eat because the food is there, not because we are actively hungry for it. And of course many French women *do* watch their weight, but are discreet about it - and successful! But they have as many health magazines as anywhere else, and they are as full of diet tips as any other.... -- Annabel Smyth http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/index.html Website updated 7 August 2004 - for a limited time, be bored by my holiday snaps! |
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Marie Osmond on Larry King Live last night.
"Lictor" wrote in message ...
"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. You don't need one. Select a number of calories to eat per day. Your bodyweight in pounds * 12 is a good start. Then eat that many calories a day. If you lose weight at aroudn 1-2 pounds a week then you know it's the right number. If you don't lose weight then decrease the number by 500. If you're losing weight too fast then increase the number until you're losing it at a sensible rate. It's not rocket science. When you try a new diet, and it doesn't work, you have two options. The first is to alter it and experiment until it does work. The second is to give up. Most fat people chose the second option. That is the option for failure. Once a fat person has chosen that option, he can remain fat and claim that he tried to lose weight but failed, so he must be genetically destined to be fat, it's not his fault, dieting doesn't work etc. Sustained weight loss involves hard work and adjustments when necessary, not giving up when things go slightly wrong. Imagine if everyone had the same attitude as fat people do with dieting: Computer programmers saying 'programming doesn't work' if a program doesn't compile because of a typo, chefs saying 'cooking doesn't work' because they messed up a single recipe because they slightly over-cooked it, car drivers saying 'driving doesn't work' because they once stalled the engine... However thankfully they don't think like that. When something goes wrong they work out what went wrong and go about fixing it, they don't just give up. 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... What...you're saying all the nutritional information on food packaging is made up? That all these scientists across the world are involved in a giant conspiracy to make you fat? 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. Yet they manage to get by somehow... Maybe it's because they just get on with it rather than whining about how difficult everything is. So, how did you lose your weight? I can't speak for him but I for one have lost a not-insignificant amount of weight. Was it easy or effortless? No, it was hard and disciplined. I watched nearly everything I ate and forced myself into the gym twice a week, not to mention a not-insignificant amount of cardio outside of the gym. No-one said it was supposed to be easy. I think that is the real issue for fat people saying that dieting is impossible. It's not impossible, it's just harder than they want it to be. And for how long have you maintained? Are you positive you will be able to maintain for life? Once I lose enough fat I don't plan to maintain, I plan to then start to put on muscle mass. Looking after your body is a life-time commitment, not something you do once then give up. Did you ever suffer from eating disorders or were you just the average over-eater? I got fat from eating everything I could lay my eyes on, and through doing absolutely no exercise. I lost the weight from doing the opposite. The fact that to you losing weight was effortless doesn't mean it is the case for everyone. He hasn't even replied saying whether it was effortless or not and you're already replying as if he'd replied that it was. For most obeses, it isn't. On the other hand, maintening a constant weight *is* effortless for well regulated slim people. Well, if it's easy for them, and not for you, that's just tough ****. Not everything is equal and fair. snip excuse making 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? Ah ok, obese people are obese because they sleepwalk and eat 9000 calories worth of food in the night... I won't ask why 9000 calories of prepared food was so readibly available though, or why you didn't think to put a lock on the fridge door or something... Fat people aren't fat through sleep-eating, it's through over-eating at every meal and through under-exercising. 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. Who said anything about stopping eating altogether? You don't stop eating, you start eating a sensible diet. That's not the hardest thing in the world, it just takes discipline. You have to deal with large psychological issues too, and peer presure sometimes (some people often do not want you to lose weight). Of course, surely that's even more inspiration to do it? 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! When followed it has a 0% failure rate. If people are lazy, ill-disciplined, gluttonous etc and give up, that's not the diet's fault, that's the fault of the people following it (or not following it!). If you know of any "plan" with a higher success rate, by all mean, publish it and get rich! So in other words you want a magic bullet that will make you start taking responsibility for your own life. 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). How many fat people have stuck to a sensible, balanced diet of the correct portions with regular exercise and not lost weight? Stop blaming other people for your failures and start taking responsiblity. 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. Yes, it does, you just don't want to believe it does, because if you know it does, then you know that it's your own fault that you're fat, which means you can't carry on blaming other people for your own failings. 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. A 'miracle' diet is 10-12*(body weight in pounds) in calories a day, with 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight, adjusted when necessary. This also involves weight-lifting, working out the whole body 1-2* a week, and regular cardio. This works as it allows you to lose fat and maintain muscle at a steady rate and also doesn't place heavy restrictions on what you can eat. However it has its downsides: it involves planning, discipline and hard work, those horrible old-fashioned things. 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... What's wrong with protein powder? 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? The US government doesn't equal the whole world of nutritionists. The world doesn't end at America's borders. 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. So? They're not you. Stop blaming your problems on other people. 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? Wow, you really are clueless, no wonder you have such trouble losing weight. A higher metabolism means you burn more calories so you lose fat more easily. A lower metabolism means you lose weight much more difficultly. Naturally slim people are able to maintain weight on a low metabolism. If you're not naturally slim then what applies to them is irrelevent to you. Stop trying to deflect criticisms onto other people. Also you'll find that 'naturally slim' people either have naturally higher metabolisms or eat less food than normal. Either way it probably doesn't apply to you. 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). You've completely missed the point. 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. There's information all over the place, it's up to you to work out which is good information and which is bad. Nothing comes on a silver plate. This is another example of you not taking responsiblity for your own actions but instead blaming other people. 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. Or perhaps you haven't adjusted it to make it work, or perhaps you just can't follow it properly. And I believe that diets are flawed, because of the very way they are built and their ignorance of basic psychological issues. No, people are flawed because they don't follow the diets. The diets themselves are fine, they work. If you chose to follow it badly it's not the diet's fault. Stop blaming your obesity on other people, it's not their fault for not making a magic bullet to stop you stuffing yourself with food. - 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... Er, sorry to disappoint you, but people aren't created equal. If you have a tendency to put on more weight than other people, then you're going to have to work harder to get rid of it. If you don't like it's tough ****, no-one ever said life was fair. You seem to be surprised by the requirement of hard work in losing weight. Somehow this doesn't surprise me. |
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