1. Of course I didn't say that people 'cannot keep weight off.' I'm beginning to think you're just lying on this particular point. If I actually believed that *no one* could maintain weight-loss, why in hell, would I post studies on weight-regain which clearly allow for exceptions ?
2. I agree that it's ludicrous. All we see is people getting fatter and fatter and living longer and longer. Take my uncle ...
But you think the probability of keeping weight off is so low that you don't think people should even try to lose weight. My anecdote, while not as compelling as a an old fat person that hasn't died yet or a guy that eats almonds, explains why weight loss...even if it is temporary...is so beneficial.
Gotta hand it to Dreamliner. He is, without a doubt, the most legendary troll of all time.
Sadly, this is the only thing that makes sense. Anyways, congrats on your weight loss.
__________________
"I'll turn my back on a five-star guy if he isn't a good guy," Muschamp says. "I have zero reservations about that. ZERO reservations."
He raises his voice a little.
"I'm the recruiting coordinator here," he says. "You're not a good guy, you go somewhere else. We'll play you. We'll beat you."
This is a good thread. As a veteran of weight-loss wars for nearly 40 of my 46 years (and still fighting), I thought I'd weigh in.
Before I go further, let me give you the details of me. I'm 46 and weight, as of this morning, 297 pounds. Two years ago I was at 403. I lost the weight through Atkins -- high fat, low carbohydrate. I've also lost 100 pounds a couple of other times -- once through a medical fasting program and another through a modified fast. This time, it took a year to get to 295, and then I slacked off a bit and put on 30, and now five months to get back to 295. I'm 6-2. I walk/run about 18 miles a week in addition to the fitbit-mandated 10,000 steps. I also lift with a trainer twice a week and chase three sub-10-year-old kids around, and when there's not snow on the ground, I cut down trees (anyone in Colorado need firewood, BTW? It's free). After four decades of dealing with this, I'm very good at measuring and portion sizes, and I keep journals. So those are the pertinent facts of my situation.
I understand the thinking that it's all thermodynamics, because that makes sense. But my experience has been that is not the case. if it were, Atkins would never work at all. But it has for me. I've done the experiments -- if I take in 1800 cals with a high carb count, I gain weight. if I do it with a low carb count, I don't gain or I lose. If I want to lose weight through a cal count, it needs to drop down to about 800 or so. If this were all a matter of thermodynamics, it wouldn't matter -- also, the cal count would have to be higher -- all the tables I've read say I'd have to take in about 3200 cals a day without exercise just to maintain. I can tell you that's not the case. Likewise, if it were just thermodynamics, it wouldn't matter when you eat, but if I eat at night, loss slows down as opposed to the morning.
If you want to say it's thermodynamics, you have to assume there is a universal standard for human beings, and that the body is a machine that continues to work in the same fashion until it wears out. If that's the case, why does ibuprofen work on my pain but aspirin doesn't, while others react the opposite way? If you are going to assign thermodynamics to weight-issues, then you'd have to figure out what each person's thermodynamic equation is -- how many cals do they burn doing what, because that's not a constant number. According to my treadmill, I burn 1000 cals a workout, which would translate to a little under 2 pounds a week just through the six workouts. But it doesn't work that way.
I've come to the conclusion that it is all body chemistry -- how your body processes and relates to insulin and sugars, at least for me. That's the other thing -- I think it's different for everyone, and you have to find the specific program not that you can follow, but that actually works for your body. After my last fast, I joined weight watchers. I was about 270 then. They gave me X amount of points, and told me I had to take in that many. I ballooned fast, so I cut my points down, and I still gained -- i was down to two thirds of their recommendation and still gained. It doesn't make sense from a thermodynamic perspective, but it's the anecdotal evidence I've got. So when you say it's just cals in versus cals out, it absolutely has not been my experience, and I've tracked it, done the work, made the effort. All that stuff.
So when you talk about willpower, what you're saying is "I have it and they don't." But -- without making direct aspersions on anyone in particular -- I think that's not true. It's common sense, though, because if you believe it's all thermodynamics, then the overweight are taking in more than they should. And if you're thin, by definition, you're not. You have the same food options they do, but you choose better, and when you see how you eat -- some fast foods sometimes, some sweets, some beer, some fatty foods, candy when you feel like it, whatever -- you think "how much must THEY be eating, if I can eat this way and stay thin?" So you assign yourself a virtue (self control) and them a sin (gluttony) and by continuing to perpetuate the thermodynamic idea, you are, at least in this regard, better than them. And since they buy into the same idea, because it's all they ever hear, they are someone worse. But a fat person is very conscious of what they eat, because they are not unaware of the perception that follows them.
But I would say on average, fat people have no more or less willpower than thin people. Unless you are actively trying to lose weight, I don't see a society with a lot of self denial when it comes to food. Candy bars now come in King Sizes, you can't order a small fence fry at McDonald's anymore. And there are not enough morbidly obese people in the country if they were the only ones buying these products. It's just that some react differently.
This isn't to say that overweight people -- myself included -- shouldn't try to lose weight. But I can tell you from personal experience, too many times to count -- that if you are going to lose a lot of weight, it has to be the single most important thing in your life. You can't let up for a minute -- every decision you make has to be tied directly to how it affect your weight. Dreamliner is right -- your body wants to be what it wants to be. And this is the first time in the history of this planet that a species has actively decided to reduce its fuel supply. Any other animal on the planet will eat until it a) runs out of food or b) can't eat anymore. When we try to lose weight, we are fighting evolution, and the body knows that. So keeping weight off is not a matter of just a lack of willpower, it is constantly readjusting and reducing intake, and that gets old. It's doable, but there is nothing simple or easy about it, and the effort is at a level we request of very few other groups.
This has gone on way too long, but as to the original point, Jullian Michaels has made a living and an empire by subtly shaming fat people, by telling them they have to live the life she suggests they live to be as good as her. She may indeed be trying to help, but she's doing it none the less. Rex Reed is just trying to be funny, and snarky, and takes an easy target to try reach a level of relevance he hasn't had in three decades. I don't know that either is better than the other, but while RR is just a critic, JM makes her money on the girth of fat people.
I'm back! Missed me ? Since I don't have time to engage the increasing number of screeching, encircling harpies, I'm switching to a time-saving format: an "Ask Dream" segment. Questions and answers to follow ...
Q: "So, are you saying we don't have an obesity crisis ?!?!"
A: Correct, we're having a ginned-up moral panic, a sort of screaming littlegirlitis, a proxy for health concerns in the context of a society which is healthier than ever and living longer than ever, because we have to panic about something.
Now, we are having a nephritis crisis. Ever heard of nephritis ? Me neither. But more people are dying from nephritis than from being fat:
Q: "But wait, aren't fat people dropping like flies ?"
A: How would we normal-weighted people know ? They're living longer than we are. Among non-smokers under the age of 60, overweight and obese have lower mortality risk than do normal weight. And for women over 50, a BMI of just over 34 has the lowest mortality risk. FYI: 34 is at the upper end of Grade I obese. And even the fattest of the fat show barely tenable increased risk, within the margin of statistical error. Reminds me of my 83-year old, nearly morbidly obese, diabetic aunt. We expect her to keel over any decade now:
Q: "You're crazy, man! Don't you know that health risks increase exponentially for fat people ? I mean, for diabetes, the risks increase to something like elebendy-jillion%!!!"
A: Well, there's really no credible evidence that people are dying 'from being fat.' But even if they are, fewer are dying from being fat than from being skinny, and also from being male, black, poor and having normal cholesterol readings.
Also, choosing the wrong parents and being old are known mortality risks.
Q: :But since we've had 'Fat Kills!' for breakfast, lunch and dinner, shouldn't we still be encouraging fat people to lose weight ? Isn't that just easier than us dealing with our cognitive dissonance and reassessing the predigested tractarianism ?"
A: Sure, you can encourage fat people to lose weight ... if you want them to experience frustration and failure, quite possibly end up heavier than when they began, be generally unhappy and even die:
Q: "Okay, maybe the fat grownups are beyond reach. Let them lay on their couches and stuff their faces, all day, for all I care. But shouldn't we consider the shaming fat kids into losing weight ? After all, I can't bear watching another generation of fatties!"
A: I take your point. Here, a panel of experts discusses the perhaps long-overdue strategy of shaming our children:
Q: "Okay, okay, but shouldn't fat people be eating less and moving more ?"
A: WTF ? Fat people are already out-living us as it is. Do you want them to live forever ? In any case, we're already eating less than we used to. And the consumption of evil sugar is down:
Q: "But can't we still say bad things about McDonald's ?"
A: Knock yourself out. But Americans are clearly not listening. And besides, the main items at McD's range from 350 to 800 calories, whereas the main items at Applebee's range from 740 to 1780. So, how is McD's making us fat ?
Do you see what's happening here ? (1) fat people are becoming less and less patient with people like you and (2) Americans in general are not listening to people like you and eating the foods they find yummy ... and are healthier than ever and living longer and longer.
Q: "Okay, since the heavier we get, the healthier we get and the longer we live, what in hell do you want the 60 billion dollar-a-year diet industry to do ?"
Q: "Yes, but we do know that it's deathly important for diabetics to lose weight, right ?"
A: Why ? There is no tenable link between weight-control and remission of Type II diabetes. Further, we know that fat diabetics fare better than thin diabetics. Is this what you want diabetics to do ?
If you want to say it's thermodynamics, you have to assume there is a universal standard for human beings, and that the body is a machine that continues to work in the same fashion until it wears out. If that's the case, why does ibuprofen work on my pain but aspirin doesn't, while others react the opposite way? If you are going to assign thermodynamics to weight-issues, then you'd have to figure out what each person's thermodynamic equation is -- how many cals do they burn doing what, because that's not a constant number. According to my treadmill, I burn 1000 cals a workout, which would translate to a little under 2 pounds a week just through the six workouts. But it doesn't work that way.
I've come to the conclusion that it is all body chemistry -- how your body processes and relates to insulin and sugars, at least for me. That's the other thing -- I think it's different for everyone, and you have to find the specific program not that you can follow, but that actually works for your body. After my last fast, I joined weight watchers. I was about 270 then. They gave me X amount of points, and told me I had to take in that many. I ballooned fast, so I cut my points down, and I still gained -- i was down to two thirds of their recommendation and still gained. It doesn't make sense from a thermodynamic perspective, but it's the anecdotal evidence I've got. So when you say it's just cals in versus cals out, it absolutely has not been my experience, and I've tracked it, done the work, made the effort. All that stuff.
I think with Atkins, the part they are counting on is increasing cals out through non-stored cals that go out with your pee and poo (no nice way to say that).
I think it is pretty well accepted that our body does not store cals from protein as fat. If it can't use it to build or maintain muscle it passes it on through the system.
And with Atkins, it is trying to put your body into a state of ketosis and again, some cals are lost through pee and breath. And by messing with insulin, your body is not being programed to store fat. So more cals out in your excrement.
So again, the laws of thermo still apply, it is just we need to recognize that "out" doesn't just include cals burned.
I think it is pretty well accepted that our body does not store cals from protein as fat. If it can't use it to build or maintain muscle it passes it on through the system.
This isn't true. Protein can be stored as fat. But it is by far the body's least ideal macronutrient to turn into fat (behind alcohol, of course).
But here is a description of how it's inefficient for the body to turn protein into fat:
Linear Mode
