Because extreme calorie restriction causes the body to slow metabolism down in ‘famine mode’. That is why if I want to change what I eat, I have to run it past my nutritionist. People with certain metabolic issues are prone to having problems when they go into famine mode, diabetics are one of them. I personally do not want my organs failing on me, I have a greater chance of it happening anyways.
I eat a hell of a lot less than ‘healthy’ people do - I would fucking kill to be able to randomly wander into a 7-11 and grab a bag of chips because I have the munchies. I would kill to be able to grab an ice cream, or a snack that isn’t already on my daily plan. As I have told several of my PCPs I will never consider bariatric surgery because I can’t eat any less than I do now, so getting cut open isn’t going to change anything.
I never said it was weakness or anything else. All I said is that the statement proposed in the OP is categorically false, because it is. It is false because of the way it is phrased. Other, rather similar statements, about weightloss could be true. But as stated it is false. The question in the OP was “is this statement true or false?” The only answer to that question is: the statement is false.
I didn’t notice you saying anything about a given individual’s caloric needs changing, which is meaningfully different than what you did say, which is that one person’s needs are different from another’s. As for the rest, I don’t get why you bothered mentioning it at all.
Well, there’s the flaw in thinking we ever know or understand anyone on a message board, since I’m not offended now, and I can’t remember the last time I was offended about much of anything since I’m as close as it gets to being immune to offense, even by things which are very personally directed towards me and designed to offend me. Because:
If you (the collective, theoretical “you”) didn’t intend to offend me, then why would I invest my emotions in believing and behaving as though you did? Does it improve any aspect of life? No. So I don’t.
and
If you did intend to offend me, clearly it’s about you, not me, so why would I invest my emotions in attaching myself to your issues? Does it improve any aspect of life? No. So I don’t.
What frustrates, annoys, and irritates me is ignorance, which is why I’ve been hanging out on the Straight Dope message boards since 1999, where fighting ignorance is the mission.
Now…this is GQ-the purest of the ignorance-fighting forums, and also intended to be the least personal. Having relieved you of your ignorance about me, we can and should return to the more general discussion about obesity.
I don’t think the medical community would care, but it would be an interesting experiment. MPSIMS, I think.
I’ll give it a try. But I can’t eat sushi or fennel.
Let me know when you’ve started your thread. You’ll have to measure and weigh some things in order to report it accurately so I can follow along.
And I live on the west coast, so if you have regional oddities you might want to skip those for awhile or my inability to match the things you’re eating will skew results.
Also, because I am obese, my ability to exactly match your exercise, depending on what it is, will be impaired, but I will try to match your reported frequency, duration, and intensity.
And my time is squeezed this week, so I suggest that you start the thread and the daily reports, but to make sure I can actually follow along, I will be a week behind, to give me time to shop for the matching ingredients and to make sure I have enough time for the exercise.
It is the obsession with dieting combined with the ridiculous abundance and excess that Americans are known for that has produced such pervasive obesity generally and such extreme obesity overall, as I am living proof and science has finally shown. I am referring to the “famine response”.
I was a compulsive overeater as a child and a young woman, but while I was decidedly fat, I was not nearly as fat as I became about 16 years ago, which is also around the time I began to recover from being so compulsive.
But during my childhood and young adulthood, I would bounce from one extreme to the other: diet like mad to get slim, involving a wide variety of extreme attempts, most of which involved being very hungry most of the time, as well as intensely stressed out, then to the other extreme of binging til I was sick.
Three decades of that fucked my body up completely. If I ate as a young person what I naturally eat today, and I never worried about my weight and subjected myself to “dieting”, I might have been a little thick, maybe chubby when young and in middle age somewhat fatter. I would guess my top weight might have crept up to 180, maybe 200, because both my mother and father had a tendency to be thick and the way I eat now is not super light and healthy, just not outrageous.
But I would never have gone as high as 330, which is where I was at one point.
And science is finally beginning to take a look at this. It is the schizophrenia that Americans in particular have about both food and weight that is turning us into a nation of seriously obese people. Lots of us do have the “fat gene”, but it wasn’t until the last 25 years that we began ballooning up.
What has happened, in addition to 60 OZ big gulps and half-pound muffins, is an obsession with thinness and diet among people who shouldn’t be worried about such things. Children (especially female children) start obsessing about how fat they are and how thin they should be when they haven’t even hit puberty yet. So the starve/scarf cycle begins… and you end up artifically creating in otherwise relatively normal people the kind of body and food issues that “in my day” :eek: you only saw in people like me, who had both a fat gene AND a food addiction.
Oh, I know. I was just curious – I’m definitely not saying it’s useless, just limited. (I could stand to lose about ten, maybe fifteen pounds, I guess). No big deal.
Oh please, you aren’t willing to do it anymore than I was seriously offering to do it. I’m sure you thought you were clever with your “Wide Eyed and Innocently Playing Along” response, but I don’t buy it.
You’d have to come stay with me for it to work, I’m afraid. I’ve had too many patients turn in reports of what they ate and how much they exercised only to see that they’re were fibbing a wee bit (read: A LOT). I’m sure you would never do that, but to be scientific we would need to strive for accuracy. Of course this isn’t going to happen in reality because neither of us is going to live with a stranger.
But hey, we don’t need to start a thread to get it going.
For breakfast I had:
-1 cup of steel cut oatmeal with a half cup of blueberries on top. No sugar or sweetener.
-16 oz of water
-1 piece of whole grain toast with a tablespoon of almond butter
Exercise so far today:
-40 minutes of kickboxing with heavy bag
-100 inverted crunches (I owe myself 200 more by the end of the day. I find if I do them all at once I lose quality for quantity and that’s never good). If you don’t have a chinup bar (and few people do, so don’t sweat that) you can use a jungle gym like this guy. (Ignore the annoying music, sorry about that). Inverted crunches may not be doable for everyone at first, so I’d say just do double the normal on-the-ground kind as a substitute.
For lower abs I do v-sits. Yikes that burns so start slow. I did 50 of those.
Butt and thighs get walking lunges with dumbbells (or jugs of water or whatever) really work. I did 3 reps of 8 with 7 pound weights. You probably don’t want to use weights to start.
I haven’t had lunch yet. It’s normally my largest meal of the day and I never eat within 4 hours of going to bed. I’m a bit behind on my water today as I normally drink about a gallon a day. I need to get going on that.
To wrap up, no I am not going to make a thread for you to follow. I have no idea what your health is like or what your ability is. You need to see a doctor to get started. Plus, let’s face it, if I’m going to train someone that I do not know, I’m not going to do it for free. My friends, yes. Strangers on the internet, no. Especially no when I think they’re not at all serious and are just trying to be contrary with their “better get started with your measuring, daily reports, etc” attitude. Like lawyers, I’m not giving away my time for free. Invest in your own health.
God, no one, I hope! I’ve never been a muffin fan (particularly commercial ones) and I have been a water drinker my whole life. My only soda fetish was back in 1979-1980 when I got fixated on diet dr. pepper for some reason.
The steel cut I can do, as well as the toast. (and I would never put sugar on it to begin with… yuck. I eat hot cereal as a savory food, not a sweet one.)
Almond butter makes me gag. I can eat a few fresh almonds or perhaps a teaspoon of peanut butter instead. Fresh blueberries are easy by themselves.
The biggest problem is eating in the morning, no matter what it is. In my world, eating that much food early in the day is hard to do, but I know it’s much healthier. It also tends to make me hungrier, perversely. But it’s still better for my body’s blood sugar and insulin response. Time of day is probably my biggest problem and the hardest for me to overcome personally, for several reasons. But I’ll try.
Exercise in and of itself has less to do with weight loss than generally believed. And pesky old science has shown that, logically, it tends to increase hunger.
But it does have an impact both directly and indirectly - improved health and overall functioning improves everything, including the body’s ability to manage stress and how it processes nutrients. Intense activity that increases the heart burns additional calories in itself, as well as elevating the overall metabolic rate for a period of time after completion of the exercise.
Weight training, done properly, increases lean muscle tissue which increases the body’s metabolic rate overall on a consistent basis, so long as the additional lean mass is maintained.
So to match your exercise I need to do what i am physically capable of doing that for me, given my age, weight, starting fitness level, sex, and general health, will function similarly to what your exercise does for you.
So I need to do 40 minutes of high intensity aerobic exercise and comparable strength training for my abs and legs. Although, for overall weight control the abdominal exercises are not a particularly important or effective kind of strength training because the abs themselves are so small and relatively inactive. To increase metabolism and really have an impact on the body, it’s much more useful to build up large muscles like the ones in my legs or even my arms. Ab muscle training is important for posture, and back health, which supports everything else, but the kind of ab focus you have wouldn’t make any difference to my weight or bodyfat composition. And sadly, it wouldn’t even make that much of a difference in my appearance even if I became slim, because I’d need surgery on the skin first. But the posture and back improvement is worth paying attention to the abs.
As far as “using weights” for any exercise that involves the legs… remember that I live with “weights” all day long and it actually does make a difference when it comes to exercise. In fact, people who have spent long periods of time being fat have much better bone density than slim people for exactly that reason.
You use 7 or 8 pound weights… to even come close to matching what I’m doing when I exercise with the added fat, you’d probably need to strap on at least 75 pounds of weights.
As I said, time of day is the biggest issue for me. I’m just not hungry…actually, let me correct that. I AM hungry during the day, absolutely. Often I’m hungry all day long, getting hungrier and hungrier and what finally drives me to the kitchen is the fact that I’m nauseated with hunger and it’s starting to hurt.
What I lack during the day is appetite. The majority of the time, food strikes me as more of a bother than its worth during the day, even when I’m hungry. And I’m not very unusual in this - it’s why so many people can and do stick perfectly to their eating plan all day long; it doesn’t matter. Food is fuel during the day.
But at night… different. Appetite. Bland uninteresting fuel doesn’t work. I want my food to be tasty. I care about what I’m eating from a completely different place. It’s very weird.
You will do as you like, but you didn’t offer and I didn’t ask to be “trained”. You challenged me:
Reporting your food and exercise is just that, reporting your food and exercise. I dont’ see how that’s so taxing on your time and energy, but if you find it so, then you do.
You starve yourself until you’re ravenous and nauseated, then head for the kitchen? Read any book or article about weight loss and you’ll be told that that this is the WORST thing you can do. Have you made no effort ***at all ***to educate yourself?
Forgive me for not believing a word you’re saying. I’ve read your posts for a while now on many topics. I know the angle you’re trying to work. Some may buy it, I do not so let’s move on.
Oh Stoid. I know you think you’re being very thorough and informative, but your past threads give you away.
Exercise has PLENTY to do with weight loss and please do not try to dig up cites from various entities that happen to agree with your garbage. Of course exercise increases hunger, do you really think you’re telling us things we don’t know? It also raises your metabolism and allows you to burn more fat.
Much like your dubious knowledge of the law got you NOWHERE with your endeavors, where has all of this “knowledge” of food, exercise, and weight reduction gotten you? Why is it that the people who think they know the most about weight loss are people who are twice as big as they should be?
Blah blah blah. This is just a litany of excuses and rationalization. I’d guess you’re at least 100 pounds overweight so of COURSE weight training isn’t going to be the most effective for you until you burn more fat. Still, some light weights with more reps can keep your muscle somewhat holding in there while you’re reducing fat. Cardio is your friend, but you already know that.
Blah blah blah about me strapping on 75 pounds to match your workout. I’d say I’d have to strap on more than double what you’re suggesting if you and I are going to be on an even level. But see, this is where your attitude fails you. You want to throw it back at me like it is I who needs to up what I am doing to match you. No Stoid, I don’t have to at all. That’s like telling a financial planner that they need to get up to their necks in debt before they counsel you on your finances. Pure rubbish. YOU got yourself into this situation and YOU are the only one who can get yourself out.
I don’t have to have added weight to my workout so I know how you feel. That’s on you.
As you said, food is fuel. You should eat more often to keep your hunger as far away as you can. Forget three meals a day. Eat ten tiny meals if you have to. Keep them around two hundred calories with a little protein each time. Who cares if you’re not completely hungry if it keeps your metabolism going and gives your body fuel? Maybe it will make you sick of food and make you start seeing it as fuel instead of pleasure. Who knows? Here are a few suggestions:
[ul]
[li]a whole grain English muffin with lowfat peanut butter[/li][li]a hard boiled egg or two[/li][li]two slices of low sodium turkey from the deli and a handful of grapes[/li][li]a handful of almonds with a quarter cup of some dried fruit[/li][li]a half a cup of lowfat cottage cheese with a few veggies for dipping[/li][li]rye toast with low fat cream cheese and a bit of fruit[/li][li]two to four tablespoons of hummus with carrots or other crudites[/li][li]a cup of shelled edamame[/li][li]a multigrain waffle (freezer section) with fruit preserves[/li][li]2 ounces of a hard cheese[/li][li]a cup of a high fiber cereal[/li][li]skim ricotta cheese in endive leaves or spinach leaves[/li][li]sliced cucumbers with some lowfat cheese (laughing cow is the shiznit)[/li][li]air popped popcorn with some 5 calorie salad spritzer sprayed on it and whatever spices you like[/li][li]lowfat greek yogurt with a little honey and/or chopped walnuts[/li][/ul]
I could go on and on. You get the point. No, I don’t need a breakdown of which of those foods you do or do not like. You get my point. You’re very intelligent, **Stoid. **Very intelligent. Sometimes I get the impression that you use it to sabotage yourself with excuses and rationalization.
Oh please. Let’s look again at what I said:
Funny that you conveniently glossed over the STAY WITH ME part which clearly indicates it was a JOKE. Turn the medical community upside down? Now, in relation to the claim that was made in the OP do you REALLY think that I was offering to train you? No, you don’t. You just thought you’d run with this nonsense for what purpose I cannot imagine.
Ah yes. And lawyers sharing a little knowledge is just lawyers sharing a little knowledge, right? Funny how you don’t see what could be taxing about other people giving you their education and time for free. That tells me so much.
Instead of sitting here playing “GOTCHA!” with people about all of this, why not make a commitment to yourself and get healthy? Get regular sleep, eat food that is good for you in the right amount, move as much as you can in the state you’re in RIGHT NOW. You will start to feel better and that will get the process rolling.
Try Sparkpeople. That’s what I suggest to my patients who are getting started. They have a lot of information, diet plans, planning tools, calorie counters and so much more. There’s a blog and a messageboard.
I say this with absolutely no snark intended: I get the impression that you are in need of a “life makeover” right now. Financially, emotionally, physically. I’m positive that has to be overwhelming as hell. I don’t know what kind of support system you have around you, but if you do not have people who are going to POSITIVELY encourage and support you then I cannot suggest Sparkpeople enough. You can surround yourself with like minded people who will motivate you.
Getting your life back in order is going to take great energy. Eating better and exercising will help with that. Will you ever be a size 4? Who knows and who cares? You do NOT have to be tiny to be health or happy or successful or smart or anything else. A body size is just a body size. Even if you only lose 20 pounds with your changes, that’s 20 pounds in the right direction and I’m certain it the discipline and care you give your body will benefit you in other aspects of your life.
Whenever I am working with a patient who is vastly overweight I find that there are so many other things going wrong in their lives. It makes sense because eating is usually their way of coping. I often hear “I don’t know where to start! I am so overwhelmed.” and I always think of one of my favorite quotes.
You can sit here and argue until this site crashes or you can put your energy and effort into improving your own life. It’s all on you and that’s not a bad thing at all. It’s not BLAME, it’s knowing that YOU are empowered to change it. Nobody else.
Why, it would have been so easy for my ex-wife to cure her anorexia! All she needed to do was count her calories and eat properly! Problem solved. What the hell did she need to be in hospital for six months for? What was she doing nearly starving herself to death? Why, if she’d just been here on the Dope, there would have been dozens of experts who had the ready answer to her problems.
What, you say? Anorexia is a different bag from being overweight? Well, not really. See, my wife didn’t know how to eat properly. She really, really thought that eating one slice of toast a day and nothing else was a healthy way to live. Thing is, you don’t come up with that misconception overnight. Neither does the overweight person learn bad eating habits overnight. And things that take you years to “learn” aren’t unlearned overnight, either.
It’s like me bitching at all y’all that you’re all too stupid to get a doctorate. Study hard, pick the right supervisor. Anyone could do it. I did it, why can’t you guys?
Sorry your wife is sick. However, your analogy is faulty.
Anorexics know perfectly well that they are starving themselves. They most certainly do NOT think that eating one piece of toast per day is healthy. But they do it anyway because their body image is distorted - they think they are fat when in fact they are skeletally thin.
Fatties, OTOH, know perfectly well that they are eating too much, but either lie about it or are in denial.
Why not pit fat people and get it over with. Most of us here have gotten a little too snarky, myself included, but do you constantly have to be so hash about it. Fatties? Really?
His analogy is exactly on point - it’s about doing vs. knowing, it’s about feelings vs. thoughts, it’s about a thousand things that don’t have diddly to do with the simple, simplistic and universally recognized reality that food leads to energy and body tissue and lack of it leads to less energy and body tissue, and some people’s continued insistence that that this simplistic and universally recognized fact is the only fact are demonstrating their profound ignorance, not only about the factors that are involved in obesity, but about the human condition itself.
But wait. Just the other day you were blaming obesity on a claimed lack of availability of weight loss information. Now you’re saying that fat people DO know what they’re supposed to be doing, but just refuse to do it? What, what?
Do you know anything at all about anorexia? Seriously, one single thing? My ex when she was sick would have proclaimed to the high heavens that her diet was just fine. That was 90% of the battle in getting her better–the fact that she simply could not see that what she was doing was unhealthy, that it was quite literally killing her by degrees.
People without doctoral degrees, on the other hand, know perfectly well they are too stupid to get a doctorate, but either lie about it or are in denial about wanting one. See how easy that was?
