How Much Does an Obese Person Eat?

Factual Questions
21

This I get, and I understand how difficult (near impossible) it is to permanently and radically alter something so fundamental as eating habits. But here at the SDMB I’ve read multiple times about how starving oneself will tend to make you gain weight, and I’ve always felt that was disingenuous. If it were presented that starving yourself would make you lose weight, but then you would be almost guaranteed to bail on the diet at some point and bounce back up to higher than the weight before you began the starvation, it would have the added benefit of plausibility. Then again, it is much more to type.

That’s an excellent analogy, btw. I could immediately relate to the compulsion to overeat, which I have never had, when I read this. Who wasn’t compelled to drive fast as a teen and twenty-something? Good on you for that comparison.

22

I don’t know how people can make such a simple issue so confusing. This is straightforward mathematics, all you can eat buffets notwithstanding.

Take a person who is 100 lbs overweight who burns on average 2000 calories a day.

That means over his lifetime he’s consumed an extra 350,000 calories compared to his ideal-weight counterpart with the same activity level and metabolism.

Sounds like a lot? Well if he’s 30 years old that means he’s eaten an extra 32 calories a day.

**About 1 carrot’s worth. **

23

The problem lies in how people’s bodies respond to overfeeding. From what i’ve read some people will respond to overfeeding by filling up old fat cells and building new ones while other people respond by having an increase in metabolism and who start feeling energetic. So both groups can eat the same number of calories its just that one will gain weight and one will not.

24

Didn’t mean to hijack and sorry I came across as prickly. Yes, I was gaining weight faster than my older sister (who is adopted). My sister binged, ate everything in sight, and was a twig. I have to have a daily pattern or I forget to eat. You’d think that our dress sizes would be reversed.

And thanks for the analysis, Shoshana. I tend to use the calorie charts I memorized as a kid so my figures will be off from yours. But trust me, I’m not in starvation mode. :slight_smile:

25

How do you know that?

26

Have you actually ever watched the show? They are doing athletic events out the ass, running around, swiming, fishing, hunting, whackig off in the bushes[just as urmise, i heard they provide condoms :eek: ] You take a fat person and make them exercise to that extreme instantly and other than sore muscles you would get the auschwiz look…and by that I mean the instant weight loss as the body burns the fat off because it isnt getting enough nutrition and you have quadrupled the amount of ‘work’ that you are doing. That energy has to come from somewhere. IIRC I only really watched a few episodes [I detest that type of show] in the first one the only thing provided to them was rice and pure water, so most of them werent getting the calorie load they were accustomed to, and combining it with athletic events. No wonder they dropped weight fast.

27

I don’t know the exact thermodynamics of it but yes, if you truly starve yourself you will lose weight. Christian Bale lost 60 pounds in 2 months to prepare for his role in The Machinist, all he ate was 1 apple a day. And there were no fat people in concentration camps.

I think people are either referring to moderately severe dieting or long term consequences of dieting. In the long term it wouldn’t be suprising if the body responds to starvation by encouraging obesity, and in the short term maybe too many calories cut leads to intense muscle loss. From what i’ve seen of others who starve themselves they lose (at least the men do) about 25 lbs a month, but at least 1/2 of that is lean body mass like muscle and organ mass. Then again alot of the studies i’ve read said that even starvation level calories (400 a day or so) only resulted in a 10-20% drop in BMR in regards to the number of calories burnt per pound of lean body mass. If you starve for a couple of months and your body eliminates 20-30 lbs of lean body mass and cuts BMR by 20% that means that even on 1200 calories a day your weight loss may slow to 1/2 lb a week or less, giving the illusion that you aren’t losing anymore weight.

28

Ok but still, the point is, **whatever the metabolism, it takes very few excess calories a day to cause huge changes in weight over a lifetime. **

People tend to be under the illusion that a person twice as heavy as another person must be eating twice as much. An extra carrot a day could theoretically do the trick without invoking metabolism variation at all.

29

I’ve struggled with my weight ever since my pregnancy with WhyKid, 12 years ago. I was “anorexic” before getting pregnant, and got down to 110 pounds (5’6", medium boned frame) at 17 years old. (Not really clinically anorexic with body image distortion, but I didn’t eat because it was cool not to.) Got pregnant, and ate very heathily (few refined carbs, lots of veggies, two to three 4 oz servings of protein a day for about 1900 calories) and gained 61 pounds.

Trying to get the weight off was a miserable failure. I literally went into the hospital at 171 pounds and emerged three days later with a 6 pound infant, still weighing 171 pounds. The doctor couldn’t figure that one out. Over the years, I’ve become a “tried it all” dieter. About 5 years ago, I decided enough was enough, and just started to ignore the whole issue. Three years ago, I had to keep a food journal for a nutrition class I was taking. I was stunned to discover that I was eating, and had been consistently eating, a mere 800 calories a day for two years. And I had lost no weight. In fact, I was up to 190 pounds.

I met with a nutritionist, who put me on a “re-feeding” program, slowly increasing my caloric intake with healthy foods, carefully chosen. I did not gain any weight. About a year ago, I finally had enough energy to take daily walks, working up to 4 miles a day. I also began training to work as a massage therapist, a job which is very physically demanding. I still weigh 190 pounds, although I feel better, have more energy and my knees don’t ache anymore. I now eat about 1500-1800 calories a day. I’m 12 weeks pregnant, so I’m keeping a food diary again, since my problem (weight aside) is that I overestimate how many calories I’m eating.

The moral? I’ve been all over the charts, calorie wise. It just doesn’t matter to my body weight-wise. It certainly affects how I feel, though: energy, joint pain, etc.

Today I had:
**Breakfast ** (at a restaurant): Garlic french toast with tomatoes, ricotta cheese and some strange italian meat substance. 2 cups coffee. Bad, bad. It was a long night last night. I haven’t had coffee in a year. Oh well, at least I didn’t smoke (or drink)at the bar last night. (3 months - no smokes!)
Lunch: 1 can Campbells Bean With Bacon soup, made with whole milk. 8 ounces orange juice
Snack: 3.5 ounces beef jerky. I know, it’s bad. But it tasted soooo good. And I was seriously craving meat and salt.
Later snack: 1 medium navel orange.

Haven’t actually had dinner yet, although it’s almost 10:00. My schedule’s all wonky because of a really, really, late night bachelorette party last night. I’m about to make a salad of mixed greens (1 cup), a carrot, 1/2 a red bell pepper and pepper and vinegar for dressing. I may have 1/2 a roasted chicken breast on it, if WhyDad didn’t eat all of it.

calculates calories

Looks like I should include the chicken, because with it I’ll have 1627 calories for the day (estimating breakfast, of course). I’ll throw in a slice of whole grain bread with a smear of cream cheese, and that’ll add another 169 calories, for a total of 1796 today. Tomorrow will be a low-sodium day to make up for today.

30

OK it’s now 11:45, and I never made the salad and bread. I’m just going to bed. So 348 of those calories never got eaten. Make that 1448 for today. I must do better tomorrow. (I suddenly feel like the inverse Bridget Jones.)

31

Assuming the effect was from the pill and not the exercise, can you say what pill? Is it legal, safe, and without serious side-effects? How does it work? Obviously medication is not a long-term solution to obesity, unless you want to take pills forever, but for folks who are grossly obese I would think it might be helpful in the short term while they are trying to make long-term adjustments in eating habits, exercise, etc.

32

I don’t get it when people make note of losing anything less than about 5 pounds. I mean, not to be gross, but you could go to the bathroom and, between #1 and #2, lose a good 3 pounds, maybe even more. I’m 6’5" and my weight flucuates almost on a daily basis from 155 to 168. It’s very rare that I weigh myself two days in a row and come up with numbers that are within 1 or 2 pounds of each other. Very rare.

And to address the OP: How much does an obese person eat? Well, typical disclaimers apply; the plural of anecdote is not data, etc.

I used to work with a lady who ate herself into a walker. Just during the workday she would eat: A family size bag of doritos and a snickers bar for breakfast, a meal sized salad plus an entree plus cake (or other dessert, depending on the restuarant) for lunch, and about 3-5 bags of popcorn the rest of the day. She also had a refrigerator in her cubicle (against the rules but no one could say anything to a “disabled” person) that she kept stocked full of junk food and various snacks. I have no idea what she ate before and after work but she probably ate as much in those 8 hours as I eat in 3 days.

33

Cisco: That’s very true – losing 1 or 2 pounds isn’t much to be excited about, since it might well be water or other stuff, and gaining 1 or 2 pounds isn’t much to be excited about, because it’s probably food in the process of being turned into carbon dioxide, water, and so on. To really be scientific about it, one would have to weigh oneself at fixed times each day, plot a graph, and find the average. Of course, if this weight loss is producing visible evidence, then it’s probably real. A pound of body fat represents a volume roughly similar to a pound of butter or two cups of water, so you’d know if it was gone. (That’s also important to keep in mind when comparing realistic weight-loss goals of a pound or two a week against infomercial claims of 25 pounds in 48 hours.)

My anecdote: Thinking of the larger people I’ve known, most have seemed to overeat. I’ve known a few who didn’t seem to eat much; a former co-worker, for example, who ate moderate lunches and often mentioned very small dinners (but I suspect he drank a lot of beer. =)) And I’ve known a few who were literally always eating, and probably ate 5000 or 6000 calories a day; a typical snack for one of them was three or four Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers (400 calories each) from Wendy’s.

The best conclusion I can draw from my experience (and it appears to be the consensus here) is that some people are obese because of their ‘metabolism’ and others because they overeat. It’s important to bear in mind that people who eat a lot are not generally lacking in willpower or self-control. Hunger is the most powerful human desire after the need for oxygen, and those whose biochemistry results in frequent hunger have enormous difficulty resisting the desire to eat.

34

I think you need a new scale - that just can’t be right.

35

I don’t think it’s ever gone from 155 to 168 over the course of a day. I just meant the lower end of my weight flucuation is around 155 and the higher end is around 168.

36

The first time I was overweight, it was a combination of comfort eating and a very unkind puberty that was at fault. I was wearing a size 18/20 and refused to step on a scale, but I suspect it was over 200 pounds. As a result of a few summer college classes at 16, I had to walk 6 miles a day instead of my usual 3 and at the same time I drastically reduced calorie intake. At the end of the summer, I was 50-60 pounds lighter and weraing a size 10-12. To be fair, I looked far too thin at that weight - my healthy weight hovers more around 155 pounds and I was 142.

Enter college and the introduction of hormonal birth control. Promptly on the same diet and activity level, I gained 20 pounds. As the trend continued, I’m now about 10-20 pounds over my ideal. I work out every morning. I eat a very small, healthy diet. And the damn weight won’t budge. Stupid hormones wrecked my body, and I can’t fix it.

Sorry, just a little bitter now.

37

Do you have a cite for this? I’m googling for “low fat diet effect on obesity” and so far I’ve found [url=http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/348/21/2082]one study of a Low-CARB diet that found no significant difference in weight loss in a 12-month period between low-carb diets and low-fat diets (though the low-carb diets did show significantly more weight loss in the 3-month and 6-month ranges).
Pretty much everything else that showed up said that low-fat diets were good, providing the person ensured they got enough of the essential fatty nutrients, such as the Omega 3 Fatty Acids.

38

I don’t know how much other people eat. What I do know is that I have always pretty much eaten the same amount. I STARTED gaining weight when I started exercising less, and I started losing weight when I started exercising again.

I strongly suspect the most prevalent difference between thin and fat people is exercise, not consumption.

39

Strange isn’t it that only people who don’t need to exercise actually do.

As to the OP, I agree with those posters who have pointed out you only have to eat 1 calorie too much a day to put on weight. And a lot of people have any idea how little you have to eat to get 2000 calories.

A very minor change in my workday lunch arrangement meant that I started going home and making my own lunch rather than getting a supermarket pasta “salad” every day. After about a month I was noticably thinner, prompted by this I dropped to one slice of toast for breakfast instead of two and began losing more fat. Probably less than a couple of hundred calories a day and I can now wear trousers that haven’t fitted me for something like ten years.

I wasn’t anything like being obese though, and obesity may complicate matters by screwing up metabolism and making it difficult to get exercise, I would think that either of these would mean that an obese person could actually eat less than an ideally sized person and still put on weight.

40

I’m 5’9" and 350 pounds. Morbidly obese in anyone’s book.
I’ve charted my calories before.
I generally take in between 3000 and 5000 calories per day, although I’ve probably touched 8000 once or twice.
My wife is also heavy, but she is constantly amazed at how much I take in, and how many times I’ll return to the buffet bar.
She’s fat because she doesn’t exercise and eats a little too much.
I’m fat because… I don’t exercise, and I eat 3 or 4 times what I should.
What puzzles me is why I’m ONLY 350 pounds. It would seem I should, by all rights, be up in the 800-1200 pound range.
Oddly, when I was doing Atkins (which I’ve since stopped due to cost factors), I could eat 1900 calories a day and feel ABSOLUTELY STUFFED.