I have a question about the BMI – does it account for athletes? Because I was reading an interview with Brooks Orpik (defenseman for the Pittsburgh Penguins), and during training season, he eats something like 4,500 calories per DAY. Most of it tends towards fish, some lean chicken – protein to build up muscle. And the guy is about 6.2 and 210 lbs. It’s almost all muscle.
I would imagine that most athletes need more calories than your average individual, and probably weigh more – but if it’s muscle, where do they fit in the BMI?
And Stoid, yes, I think everyone KNOWS that everyone’s calorie needs are different (height, weight, metabolism, etc). No one’s saying it isn’t. But calories in, calories out – that you can’t change. Crafter_Man, no offense, but IIRC, you’re at the more extreme end – you don’t even touch junk food (sweets), period. A lot of people can indulge in the occassional treat without going overboard. So, not everyone needs the same exact TYPE of handling how they eat – you know what I’m saying?
Like, you completely avoid sweets – someone else may be able to try them in moderation (saving a piece of cake for a special occassion, or having say, two or three cookies for lunch).
Everyone can have a specific PLAN as to how they eat. It’s not just how MUCH you eat too, but HOW you eat. Technically, I could eat nothing but cheetos and diet Pepsi, and as long as I kept my calorie intake down, I’d be losing weight, but would I be healthy? I think that’s what people mean when they say – talk with your doctor. “What is my ideal weight? Can you reccomend certain exercises that I might try”, etc. Or what factors effect their history.
(As an offside? I’d reccomend raw mushrooms with hummus as a snack. Hummus is sooooo good and it’s got a lot of nutrients. I go through about a container of it a week – too bad it’s so freaking expensive. Find some low-fat, low-cal pita chips, too, put some raw 'shrooms on top? YUM!!! I’m in HEAVEN. I love raw tomatos too. Especially the romas. I eat them like apples.)
“To me, the quote reads that “no” amount of dieting will ever help them-- as in – they could reduce caloric intake”
Which to me simply means the statistic isnt being understood properly. Obviously caloric reduction is still the same primary mechanism, but Dseid has also supplied some info on why differences might result between the two strategies even within that.
Also the difference is it reduces non-compliance issues which clearly will be one reason why they dont occur The debate seems to mostly be over why that non-compliance occurs, which seem to boil down to simplistic ‘its all in your head’ arguments vs arguments that more complicated processes than simply willpower are a significant part of the picture. So far seen a heck of a lot more cites supplied on the complicated side than the ‘its just willpower’ side.
This doesnt mean that side is ‘right’ because I know in practise this is a huge battle in the literature, with accusations of moneymaking on one side, and moral crusading on the other, and cites galore flying about from both. But within this thread its another story.
I’ve noticed you in these threads in the past. I have a few questions that I hope you will answer.
49 this october
I spent most of my adult life at 67 inches, I lost 2 inches and am now 65 inches.
335
270
17 years
it took me 3 years to go from 135 to 285, then about 3 more years to creep up to 335.In all this time I did not change my diet nor my activity level. The US Navy medical system refused to properly diagnose and treat me. They still refuse to recognize most of my health issues. I now have a civilian medical team working with me and I am finally being treated for my health issues.
No, I was the skinny little tomboy running around with skinned knees.
20
no yo-yoing. The weight loss I have been having is apparently related to the hysterectomy I had last august
Nope, they are normal height and weight. My mom is now gaining weight, the meds she is on for her alzheimers combined with being fragile is making her gain weight as she is not as active/mobile as she was. I think at 87 she can eat what she wants and get as fat as she likes …
I’ve noticed you in these threads in the past. I have a few questions that I hope you will answer.
49 this october
I spent most of my adult life at 67 inches, I lost 2 inches and am now 65 inches.
335
270
17 years
it took me 3 years to go from 135 to 285, then about 3 more years to creep up to 335.In all this time I did not change my diet nor my activity level. The US Navy medical system refused to properly diagnose and treat me. They still refuse to recognize most of my health issues. I now have a civilian medical team working with me and I am finally being treated for my health issues.
No, I was the skinny little tomboy running around with skinned knees.
20
no yo-yoing. The weight loss I have been having is apparently related to the hysterectomy I had last august
Nope, they are normal height and weight. My mom is now gaining weight, the meds she is on for her alzheimers combined with being fragile is making her gain weight as she is not as active/mobile as she was. I think at 87 she can eat what she wants and get as fat as she likes …
ran out of edit time, cat stepped on my trackman and sent response before i was ready …
“1/3” of people have trouble miantaining long term weight loss" is almost definitely true – actualy it seems a bit low.
All am I saying, is that the question as proposed in the OP is categorically false as stated. All that other stuff, may be true (ie, people have a hard time adopting new habits, eating can be emotional, hunger & satiety triggers are different person to person, etc) but it doesn’t change the fact that the proposition as stated in the OP is pure bullshit.
I feel like that’s getting lost in this otherwise reasonable discsussion.
Hello Again, I read it as that no matter how often they diet, for at least a third, it won’t solve their obesity. Not that it is impossible for diet to work on them, just that it won’t, no matter often they try, under supervised plan, or not. That’s true. The ad is stated poorly and obnoxious, but that fact is true. Also as previously cited, bariatric surgery only partially works by reducing intake; it additionally has gut hormone effects that are only beginning to be understood.
billfish you seem to be under the impression that I am obese and am taking personal offense as “a fattie” - I am not. Oh mind you my BMI has crept up into overweight on occasion, but I am not now or have I ever been obese. I do triathlons (up to the half ironman level anyway), have run marathons, bench well over my body weight, and am quite fit thank you very much. (My cholesterol is good though only because of the Lipitor.) I hate bullies is all. Well that and that people who don’t know what the hell they are talking about but think that they do annoy the crap out of me. And as a pediatrician who has worked long and hard on our large multispecialty medical group’s plan to address obesity at the level of identifying it in early childhood, as early as the early adiposity rebound if possible, and to attempt to intervene before adult obesity sets in, I am somewhat well read on the subject. But again, mainly I think bullies suck. And I won’t stand by and enable it by silence.
Call BS? Read the cites. Sure, the researchers are just making shit up. Like you are making up what I actually said.
Guin BMI is just a tool and it is a limited tool. No it does not distinguish between muscle weight and fat weight and it is not the be all and end all. In adults they try to also use other measures to get at that, such as the waist to height ratio (especially meaningful as abdominal obesity is particularly ominous as a long term predictor of health risk). As a pediatrician I often have to ignore a BMI of 95% or higher in a football player who is clearly mostly all muscle. But I often also have to tell some High School lineman that not all of his BMI is muscle, y’know? And make the pitch that explosive speed matters more than bulk and that fat loss would help him make harder hits. (Cause that’s what he cares about.)
[QUOTE=DSeid;12629325 billfish you seem to be under the impression that I am obese and am taking personal offense as “a fattie” - I am not. Oh mind you my BMI has crept up into overweight on occasion, but I am not now or have I ever been obese. I do triathlons (up to the half ironman level anyway), have run marathons, bench well over my body weight, and am quite fit thank you very much. (My cholesterol is good though only because of the Lipitor.) I hate bullies is all. [/QUOTE]
You take all MY posts here on the Dope regarding weight gain and tell me where I’ve made value judgements or called people “fatties”. I am reasonably sure my post regarding fat issues usually include exceptions, apologies for coming off rude unintentionally, and a point that its not some kind of serious moral judgement on self worth.
IMO you do get your hackles up when weight issues come up. Maybe its because you have a right to due to other posters, but please keep your ire line of fire away from me thank you very much.
I KNOW “fat” people. I know people who fight it and win. I know people who fight it and lose. And I know people who fight it and just keep on keeping on. And IME, most of the excuses others here on the net use are just that, excuses (or self delusional “lies”).
Look, if you tell me you see a doctor and you keep a detailed journal and by golly you ONLY eat 1200 calories a day and still can’t lose weight, I aint going to call BS.
But MOST people who claim they can’t lose weight that I see running around? When they eat enough in one sitting to make ME feel stuffed? THEY sure as shit ain’t eating 1200 calories a day.
The fact that you fail to discern any distinction between my asking Crafter man for more factual data about his experience of being fat and quizzing people “about how they got so fat and why they aren’t thinner…” is enormously revealing.
And with all due respect, I don’t have time to explain what is plain on its face, and the fact that you don’t find it so bodes ill for any debate or discussion we might have. I’ve kinda settled on a policy for sanity’s sake not to get caught up in that sort of thing.
Damn… if only the obesity researchers had known that your personal observations provide the accurate answer to all their inquiries, imagine the time and money that could have been saved!
this, at least, is true… can you explain what exactly you mean when you say:
???
Calories are a unit of measurement only. As Dseid has tirelessly shown, the number of calories a person requires can change radically, and in the case of the obese generally does when they diet. So “calories in calories out” means…what?
No. I am saying that achieving 500 calories per day under that moving downwards target of what is burned and then maintaining those habits ad infinitum while living in a modern Western society of food abundance (with of course the higher calorie poorer nutrition food being around us most of all) with a biologic predisposition to gain weight and a body that has years of being trained with a much higher point as its “settling point” and is sending messages to get the body to get back up there, is something that a large number of them will not ever achieve even after many attempts including ones that are medically supervised - not that weight loss wouldn’t occur if they did keep to 500 less in per day than they burned - and that failure to do that is not “weakness”.
billfish your comments were included as part of a “best of” compilation, mainly on the basis that your were claiming that fat people saying that they have dieted and failed was a personal offense to you and that you knew they were not really trying or lying but just making excuses. To be sure your comments were not the most egregious of the bunch. I also am certainly not trying to say that all or even most obese people are trying, have tried, or have tried wisely. Nor am I saying that overeating and poor choice of foods are not key parts of becoming obese. But I am saying that while success at that goal of persistent fat loss by lifestyle changes deserves respect and admiration, failure to achieve it does not warrant mocking or derision, and those of us who have never been obese (really obese) cannot really appreciate how difficult that road is and should think a bit before we offer expert advice about something most of us actually know little about.
Do you have a cite for the 10% that takes into account sleep apnea, depakote, and every other condition or drug known for causing weight gain? :dubious:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56339 http://www.riskworld.com/pressrel/2000/PR00a049.htm http://www.thyroid-info.com/articles/thyroid-prevalence.htm
Cushing’s affects approximately 5% of the population, studies estimate hypothyroidism may affect more than 10% of the population, PCOS affects an estimated 6-10 percent of the population depending upon which site you believe, 2.6% of the population take depakote, an estimated 25% of people on antidepressants experience weight gain and an estimated 10% of the population are on antidepressants. That doesn’t even take into account those on steroids, high blood pressure medications or the others I haven’t looked up yet.
I’m fairly certain that adds up to more than 10% of the population.
Then let’s look at people with mobility issues due to fibromyalgia, MS, or other illnesses that make exercise difficult or painful while we’re poking fun at people who just need to get off their lazy asses.
sigh In other words, if you burn more calories than you consume, that’s how you lose weight. You can’t change THAT fact. Duh. Of course different people have different needs. Of course, one’s needs can change. Did I say otherwise? :rolleyes:
Sometimes, Stoid, I get the feeling that you LIKE to be offended.
Why don’t you and I do some research? You can stay with me and eat what I eat and exercise when I exercise and you can show me how you don’t lose weight and we’ll turn the medical community upside down!
Depends on your definition of “help”. I agree, if a person is eating crap, changing to eating healthily cannot help but cause them to lose at least some weight, and also be more healthy.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some people for whom dieting will never make them have a ‘movie star’ body. While diet definitely plays a huge role (and exercise obviously probably plays a slightly larger role), no diet and exercise plan can completely overcome the natural genetic and metabolism of people predisposed to obesity. Sure, even these people will be better off with diet and exercise. But they will never ever have ‘six pack abs’ or lose their love handles and waddles.
I would imagine that any surgery that simply limited food absorption could not in principle help anyone who could not be helped by dieting. I could maybe imagine some kind of drug helping them, if it modified their metabolism, or counteracted their genetic tendencies in some way.
Am I the only one for whom this thread reminds me of the thread about depowering Superman by both depriving him of sunlight and also making him use his powers?
Does not work for athletes, does not work for pregnant or nursing women, does not work for people whose general shape doesn’t fit well into size tables… it can be a useful shorthand, but you have to keep the short in mind.
It does not work for competition-level body builders and people who have trained intensely for certain muscle-building sports. If you are at that level, you probably have a sports doctor advising you anyway. It almost certainly does work for the dude who goes to the gym a few times a week and the chick who jogs a couple of miles before work.
There may be some body types out there for whom it is inappropriate, but that doesn’t amount to “I don’t think I look fat, therefore the BMI doesn’t work on me.” Remember, the BMI is not measuring if you look fat, it is measuring if you have enough fat on you to be a health risk. For most people, a health BMI is not just "I don’t look like a mass of quivering Jell-O."A healthy BMI is actually pretty actively slim.
So while the BMI doesn’t work for everyone, chances are it works just fine for you, even if you don’t like what it has to say.
