page 4

8/30/2012 4:03:23 PM

Quote :

"Since I tend to gain weight, it didn't take long for overweight to become obese. I take complete ownership of it."

You're not taking complete ownership of it if you have to preface the statement with an excuse like "Since I tend to gain weight..."

8/30/2012 4:10:04 PM

^^^Right, but d357r0y3r is right that that is the only current solution.

I mean, we could try to make cities more walkable, which would be fairly benign. More restrictively, we could also penalize drivers, tax king size candy bars, limit portion sizes permitted in restaurants, etc...but people would find a way to do what they want to do.

I'm hopeful that pharmaceutical companies will devise a miracle medicine, but in the meantime, education/willpower is all we've got.

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 4:10 PM. Reason : ]

8/30/2012 4:10:19 PM

Quote :

"^^that may be true for a small portion of the obese, but for most, their obesity originates from poor diet and being lazy fat asses."

I fully agree to this being the initial cause the vast majority of the time, but I'm going to disagree with the next part.

Quote :

"For most of these people if they stopped eating shitty food and walked daily, they would lose weight. The problem lies in the fact that people want to lose weight as fast as possible because they are impatient."

No. Switching to a healthy diet and walking daily will have many positive effects, but weight loss is not one of them. Sure, they might lose a few pounds right off the bat as their body sheds excess water weight, but the actual fat burn is not going to happen until they take more drastic measures to create a caloric deficit. I don't know why people thing fat folks are metabolic gods that will shed fat by eating a healthy diet, but that isn't going to happen. Not in the real world at least.

Quote :

" They dont see the results they think they should be seeing and they revert back to being lazy fat asses."

Again...You're putting all the blame on the psyche and ignoring the physiological processes at play within the body.

Quote :

" The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there. Scientists are still learning why a weight-reduced body behaves so differently from a similar-size body that has not dieted. Muscle biopsies taken before, during and after weight loss show that once a person drops weight, their muscle fibers undergo a transformation, making them more like highly efficient “slow twitch” muscle fibers. A result is that after losing weight, your muscles burn 20 to 25 percent fewer calories during everyday activity and moderate aerobic exercise than those of a person who is naturally at the same weight. That means a dieter who thinks she is burning 200 calories during a brisk half-hour walk is probably using closer to 150 to 160 calories. Another way that the body seems to fight weight loss is by altering the way the brain responds to food. Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist also at Columbia, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track the brain patterns of people before and after weight loss while they looked at objects like grapes, Gummi Bears, chocolate, broccoli, cellphones and yo-yos. After weight loss, when the dieter looked at food, the scans showed a bigger response in the parts of the brain associated with reward and a lower response in the areas associated with control. This suggests that the body, in order to get back to its pre-diet weight, induces cravings by making the person feel more excited about food and giving him or her less willpower to resist a high-calorie treat. “After you’ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,” Rosenbaum says. “You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.” Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, “and you’ve created the perfect storm for weight regain.” How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected. The problem could persist indefinitely. (The same phenomenon occurs when a thin person tries to drop about 10 percent of his or her body weight — the body defends the higher weight.) This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means it’s really, really difficult. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all


Not to say that a person can't keep weight off, but there is clearly more at work than "laziness."

8/30/2012 4:10:37 PM

I wonder how some of yall explain why Americans have such a high percentage of obesity as compared to (almost?) every other country in the world?

8/30/2012 4:19:48 PM

Suburbs.

Done.

8/30/2012 4:21:40 PM

Quote :

"The problem with that, though, is you can throw education at people, but you can't just make them have willpower."

Luckily, I'm not interested in "making" people learn or have willpower. Within my social circles, I try to get people interested in nutrition/fitness and inspire people where possible, but I have no lofty goals of changing society as a whole.

8/30/2012 4:26:38 PM

^^I'd agree there. I try to walk/bike everywhere I can. It's a lot tougher to do that in a rural/suburb area. Not to mention sitting in a car for so long every day.

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 4:27 PM. Reason : plus SUVs lead to obesity. ]

8/30/2012 4:26:48 PM

I do claim to know one solution to childhood obesity that I'm almost 100% sure works:

Trampolines.

http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/08/18/2957318/valley-children-show-obesity-can.html

8/30/2012 5:17:00 PM

Quote :

"I wonder how some of yall explain why Americans have such a high percentage of obesity as compared to (almost?) every other country in the world?"

Certainly not laziness if there is any truth to this list:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/07/18/the-laziest-countries-in-the-world-u-s-not-even-close/

But hey...Japan is on there and almost made the top 10. #11 (Slide 12). Fatties!

I'm sure there are a multitude of factors. We work more hours than most 1st world nations, giving us less time to prepare proper meals and more income to spend on readily available junk. We have an economy that largely does not reward those with physically demanding jobs. This leads more of us into offices and cubicles to earn a good living. Cultural issues are certainly a factor. Add to that a general lack of understanding of the foods we are surrounded by. I mean, face it, people basically ate the same thing their parents ate for thousands of years with only minor changes over time. The ability to store food and new ways to process food was quite revolutionary. Most of the food we eat simply wouldn't have been available or would not have been available in similar forms to our great great grandparents.

I think we are at the cusp of having a better understanding both scientifically and culturally of how to live in a society that surrounds us with cheap shitty food, but that hasn't always been the case. Even if it were, fixing cultural problems can be far more difficult than simply educating people. A person is basically at the mercy of their parents to provide for their nutritional needs and to teach them proper diet for the first 18 years of their lives. Folks who did not have the benefit of a proper diet growing up face a huge hurdle that likely won't be surmounted overnight.

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 5:27 PM. Reason : s]

8/30/2012 5:27:00 PM

skack is holding court in here

8/30/2012 5:32:00 PM

All you fatcists out there! All the fatcist airlines that won't widen their chairs. Its a gosh durn hate crime! Dey derk er derbs!

[Edited on August 30, 2012 at 6:02 PM. Reason : g]

8/30/2012 5:36:39 PM

Quote :

"You're not taking complete ownership of it if you have to preface the statement with an excuse like "Since I tend to gain weight...""

If you want to take it as an excuse, that is fine, but it isn't how I meant it. I have a certain body type and baseline metabolism -- we all do. It's up to the individual to work with their body type to make gains and losses as they see fit. The person has complete and total control of what they do with what mother nature gives them. However, I acknowledge that because of my particular body type and baseline metabolism, I gain weight rapidly. It is my fault that I did not take into consideration my body's natural inclination during a period of high stress. I do not believe that knowing oneself excuses your behavior, especially when you do not use that self knowledge to your advantage. It's almost worse.

8/30/2012 7:10:56 PM

All you fatties need to get your panties out of a wad, eat better and run more.

8/30/2012 7:17:06 PM

Quote :

"I have a certain body type and baseline metabolism -- we all do. It's up to the individual to work with their body type to make gains and losses as they see fit."

My understanding of the research is that, no, obesity isn't correlated with a measurably lower metabolism even though they've tried. People can still be predisposed to weight gain, and they've identified certain traits that are possibly the cause of that, but they lie in the hunger feedback mechanism.

After you put the weight on, then yes, your body starts to physically change and your composition is fundamentally different that makes it difficult to keep weight down. But my own reading was that the metric of a person's innate metabolism is not fundamentally different.

8/30/2012 10:22:12 PM

Then why is it (and this is a genuine question) someone like my friend who is a sedentary computer geek who eats constantly and supplemented his fat intake with entire tubes of cookie dough stay his thin waif like self despite trying to gain weight, but someone else who did the same might gain 10 easy pounds?

8/31/2012 7:40:24 AM

To give a good answer, I would really need to find the Google Tech Talk (or whatever it was) I heard this from, but I can try to reflect the general line of thinking, which I've found several people in this thread share.

Quote :

"someone like my friend - who is a sedentary computer geek - eats constantly - supplemented his fat intake with entire tubes of cookie dough "

Yes, it makes sense that we would like to think of someone sitting all day and burning the minimum amount of calories, but do you know how much he sleeps?

Antidote:
One of the great NCSU running PE teachers tells a story of this guy who took his class and got winded walking. Seriously obese. Teacher asked questions and found that he loved to stuff his face with his pasta dinner and pass out asleep right after that. In other words, an early bedtime. Turned out, he was sleeping like 11 hours a day. Teacher asked him to sleep 8 hours a day. Results were seen.

Computer geeks, video game nerds, etc, sometimes don't sleep much. These skinny fuckers could be burning ungodly amounts of calories. Plus, what's his tendency when he does get outside? Did he do a sport in his history? I know a lot of guys who did cross country in HS and their BMI wouldn't budge from 19 for a decade. The body has a long memory.

So he eats fat. A lot of people in this very thread have argued the "all calories are the same" line. It's certainly true in some context. It was in the 70s that the idea that eating fat = storing fat emerged, but the problem is that it's wrong. Carbs also cause fat. It's a dispute that will probably never be resolved. But that his consumption is in fat doesn't really tell us anything. How satiating is it anyway?

Bonus:
My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy
http://www.zug.com/live/86638/My-Week-of-Eating-Nothing-But-Candy-Part-2.html

Quote :

"To see just how much destruction this week had done to my body, I had weighed myself before starting. Somehow, I lost four pounds. I believe this is because candy is the new miracle weight loss secret! You might argue that it is due to violent malnourishment. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree."

8/31/2012 9:08:04 AM

I always joke that you can lose fat while eating nothing but pop tarts, and you can. However, you're also going to lose lean mass (muscle).

Studies have been done comparing diets equal in calories but varying in protein content. One group was low protein, one was medium protein, one was high protein. Fat content stayed the same, carbohydrates would make up the calorie difference. All three groups were put on a calorie surplus.

The results were that every group gained the same amount of body fat. However, the high protein group gained more weight overall, except that some of it was lean mass. This is why I refuse to talk about losing/gaining weight. It's not about weight, it's about body composition.

Unrelated:

8/31/2012 10:05:58 AM

Quote :

"Carbs also cause fat."

This is how I got fat, mostly. I ate a lot of crackers (yes, some fat, true) and cherry coke in high school. Plus the more sugar and white carbs I would eat, the hungrier I would get.

While low carb dieting isn't for everyone, it helped me to be less hungry and reduce my caloric intake (protein = NOT HUNGRY). I've started incorporating some carbs (aside from vegetables I was already eating) back into my diet (whole grain brown rice, etc), but cutting calories is harder.

At the end of the day, it really is a calorie balance (though carbs and salt will affect your water weight a lot as well) - and I can say this having had a hypothyroid condition at one point

Sure, maybe my baseline caloric intake has to be lower than most people at my weight, but that's manageable: I will not starve to death eating 1200 calories a day

I've found that being careful with food >>> exercise for me in terms of actual weight loss

While exercise is important for general health, it makes me hungrier and gives me the excuse that I can binge because "I worked out today"

[Edited on August 31, 2012 at 10:39 AM. Reason : .]

8/31/2012 10:38:47 AM

Quote :

"I can say this having had a hypothyroid condition at one point Sure, maybe my baseline caloric intake has to be lower than most people at my weight, but that's manageable: I will not starve to death eating 1200 calories a day"

Hypothyroidism's effects on the body go much further than just creating a caloric imbalance that can be overcome by eating less. A person with moderate hypothyroidism will feel worn out 24/7 making it very difficult to exercise. Couple that with a low calorie diet that is likely lacking in some aspects of nutrition and there's not going to be a great quality of life regardless of whether weight gain is present. If anyone has an excuse for weight gain it's the folks who've had an actual thyroid condition. Anyone in that situation needs to get treated first and then start worrying about the weight loss.

[Edited on August 31, 2012 at 10:56 AM. Reason : s]

8/31/2012 10:56:06 AM

Absolutely, the fatigue was awful, and my hair falling out wasn't fun either

but now that I'm back in the normal TSH range, things have been easier than they were

hypothyroidism isn't just something people "make up" as an excuse, is all

by the way, if you start feeling sluggish and have some hypothyroid symptoms, get your copper levels checked too (the wrong kind of multivitamin started me down this path, actually)

and your vitamin D levels: sometimes low levels contribute to weight gain

[Edited on August 31, 2012 at 11:22 AM. Reason : .]

8/31/2012 11:17:56 AM

How do you know you have it?

I'm curious because I'd like to get tested.

Do you go in and ask for a particular blood panel?

8/31/2012 11:23:59 AM

Quote :

"I wonder how some of yall explain why Americans have such a high percentage of obesity as compared to (almost?) every other country in the world? "

because those countries are picking beetles out of logs for food? Because those countries have governments rationing out food to its citizens? Because those countries have citizens working 12 hours a day for nothing?

[Edited on August 31, 2012 at 11:27 AM. Reason : w]

8/31/2012 11:27:05 AM

^^well I get my blood checked twice a year anyway, so it's easy to tack on other tests

so they can do a full thyroid panel or just the TSH as a first check (mostly I just get TSH checked now, though the panel is more informative)

just asking is the easiest way, really

[Edited on August 31, 2012 at 11:27 AM. Reason : .]

8/31/2012 11:27:30 AM

Not to disagree with the severity of the effects of hypothyroidism, it needs to be said that WAY more people have the condition today than what should. I lump it in with the array of diseases like diabetes that just pile up, create more conditions, and make it harder to have a normal life. I've seen several baby boomer age people in my family get hit with the hypothyroidism.

I don't think this trend is... natural

8/31/2012 11:28:21 AM

probably not

my mom's had issues with her thyroid before, so it made sense to check mine

8/31/2012 11:30:28 AM

Wow, I never knew all that about StillFuchsia. Now I feel terrible about picking on her before and making her cry

8/31/2012 12:29:29 PM

Thyroid disease is no joke. My son has Hashimoto's, so he's had periods of hypothyroid and hyperthyroid. Right now he's hyperthyroid. When his levels aren't under control, it really makes a difference in his appetite, weight gain, growth curve, activity level, and sleep. It's pretty crazy how dramatic the difference is, especially in his weight and height (thyroid disease in children also affects growth).

8/31/2012 12:52:04 PM

now lets keep making fun of people anyway

8/31/2012 1:03:45 PM

Maybe people with hypothyroidism should be forced to get a thyroid shaped neck tattoo so that people whose biggest accomplishment in life is that they never got fat know not to pick on them.

8/31/2012 1:21:37 PM

http://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10466138&site=ehost-live&scope=site



[Edited on September 4, 2012 at 12:17 AM. Reason : @ the organic pushers, there is plenty more.]

9/4/2012 12:15:38 AM

Kinda wonder where one would go to get a bathroom scale that goes beyond a few hundred pounds. Quick search on amazon only shows one going up to 440lbs... I guess you could buy two...

9/4/2012 12:39:37 AM

Quote :

"I'm trying to transition to an only-hard-liquor policy. For my health."

hahahhahahahahahahaha. hard liquor vs beer. for your health.



howcome y'all muhfuckas ain't talkin bout microbiomes and shit

http://www.economist.com/node/21560523

Quote :

"The fat of the land This role in nutrition points to one way in which an off-kilter microbiome can affect its host: what feeds a body can also overfeed or underfeed it. One of the first analyses of such an effect was Jeffrey Gordon’s work on bacteria and obesity. In 2006 Dr Gordon, who works at the Washington University School of Medicine, in St Louis, Missouri, published a study that looked at the mixture of bacteria in the guts of fat and thin Americans. Fat people, he discovered, had more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes than thin ones. And if dieting made a fat person thin, his bacterial flora changed to match. Experiments on mice suggest this is not just a question of the bacteria responding to altered circumstances. They actually assist the process of slimming by suppressing production of a hormone that facilitates the storage of fat, and of an enzyme that stops fat being burned. This may help explain an otherwise weird observation from agriculture, which is that adding antibiotics to cattle feed helps fatten beasts up—though cattle treated in this way put on muscle mass as well as fat. Having shown that gut bacteria are involved in obesity, Dr Gordon wondered if the converse was true. In a study he conducted in Malawi, he revealed at a meeting last year, he found that it is. Having the wrong sort of bacteria can cause malnutrition, too."

9/4/2012 2:41:26 AM

Quote :

"because those countries are picking beetles out of logs for food? Because those countries have governments rationing out food to its citizens? Because those countries have citizens working 12 hours a day for nothing?"

i'm talking about pretty much every other country in the world, all the other civilized countries, other western countries, other democratic countries. you're talking about 3rd world nations.

9/4/2012 9:20:59 AM

Quote :

"i'm talking about pretty much every other country in the world, all the other civilized countries, other western countries, other democratic countries."

Well that statement just defeated itself

9/4/2012 9:53:59 AM

Quote :

"I wonder how some of yall explain why Americans have such a high percentage of obesity as compared to (almost?) every other country in the world?"

Most other 1st world countries are pretty high up there as well. Sure the US may be 4-5% higher but comparatively Mexico, Australia, UK, Greece, etc all have 22%+ obesity compared to the US's 30%.

9/4/2012 9:56:29 AM

I'm not a fan of large people regardless of how much fat they have.

9/4/2012 10:06:48 AM

I just don't like fat people

9/4/2012 10:12:10 AM

I remember some fat chick joked that she wanted to get AIDS so she could be thin...

9/4/2012 10:21:22 AM

^but people still wouldn't want to have sex with her.

9/4/2012 6:20:00 PM

^^^^^ sure, the rest of the first-world is not Somalia-like in its lack of obesity, but there is a huge difference in how disgustingly, mind-blowingly obese America is compared to anywhere else I've ever seen.

9/4/2012 6:44:35 PM

Quote :

"Most other 1st world countries are pretty high up there as well. Sure the US may be 4-5% higher but comparatively Mexico, Australia, UK, Greece, etc all have 22%+ obesity compared to the US's 30%."

Compared to our competition in this category, the US is a very big and diverse country. That doesn't speak well of us. We still have our NYC and Colorado. Obesity isn't distributed uniformly, in fact, it's not anything close to that.

If you counted US states as nations (even if you counted the providence level of other nations), then you would find the top positions nearly monopolized by a cesspool of southern American lard. Not to mention, the majority of TWW lives in this pool of lard. A pool of lard that has not just a worldwide record, but probably a record out of all of history.

Isn't that amazing?!

9/4/2012 7:05:01 PM

And the South is the least educated, the most rural (least walkable), and still eats a cuisine intended for people who work 10 hours a day in the fields. PLUS, in addition to the traditional cuisine...we've added all the extra sugary/convenience foods. Daily ham/butter biscuits is bad enough, but we wash 'em down with two liters of Coke and top 'em off with Oreos.

And I still wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

9/4/2012 7:19:49 PM

I'm really bringing down the average. Maybe I should move, as to not disrupt this historic achievement.

9/4/2012 7:21:38 PM

I also forgot we probably receive the most food stamps.

We may be uneducated and unemployed, but as God is my witness, we'll never be hungry again!!!!

9/4/2012 7:28:52 PM

This thread motivated me to check my eligibility for food stamps.

Quote :

"We are sorry. You have more income than the Food Stamp Program allows. If your income goes down, you may become eligible for food stamp benefits. You may be eligible for other food programs if you meet their income and/or age guidelines."

9/4/2012 7:38:18 PM

^^^^^ that's true to an extent; prob not quite as much as 10-20 years ago. Everywhere is whale-like, now.

Google the maps of obesity, year by year, for the last ~30 years. Pretty interesting.

9/4/2012 7:47:19 PM

Post that shit yourself you lazy asshole. You must be HUGE.

9/4/2012 8:01:13 PM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19474239

Quote :

"People can be obese yet physically healthy and fit and at no greater risk of heart disease or cancer than normal weight people, say researchers. The key is being "metabolically fit", meaning no high blood pressure, cholesterol or raised blood sugar, and exercising, according to experts. Looking at data from over 43,000 US people they found that being overweight per se did not pose a big health risk."

9/5/2012 10:49:52 AM

Rulon Gardner is obese

and the guy cant be killed

meanwhile MCD died of diabeetus and several heart attacks

[Edited on September 5, 2012 at 12:59 PM. Reason : w]

9/5/2012 12:58:47 PM