I unhappily report that I am right about obesity and diet (Very long)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
501

Stoid I do want to give you some encouragement- the low carb diet works very well to take off weight moderately fast. Do add fiber supplement and leafy greens, however. I suspect you will lose about 30#.

But after 4-6 months, you are likely going to be tired of it. I was. But here’s what I learned; use the Low-carb to take off weight, and then use a normal NO JUNK FOOD DIET to maintain your weight loss. Say to yourself “I will not regain more than 3#” . Allow yourself a small weekend “binge” at the end, but after that- NO JUNK FOOD. Read Pollans book. Eat FOOD not JUNK FOOD.

Stay on the maintenence diet for 6 months. Back to low-carb. Lose another 30#. Rinse/wash/repeat. :wink: This should give you a net loss of 25# a year, and with no real cravings or being hungry.

I have done this myself. Using this program I have lost- and KEPT OFF now over 60#. Yes, I regain a couple pounds. But Low carb is easy to do for 4-6 months, safe & effective. Even the NEJM agrees. Use low carb to lose weight then eat sensible to maintain the weight loss.

I feel so much better with both the weight loss and the no junk food. My MD sez I am “disgustingly healthy”. My Chol counts are perfect, my BP is fine, bloood work is all good. Mind you, my Doc sez he’d like to see me lose some more weight (so I just went off Low carb, losing 15#) but he sez my weight is not a current health issue.

Oh and the extra fiber gave my colonoscopy a “clean bill of health”. :eek:

502

Sounds very sane! Especially the fiber, that’s a must must must must.

I’m not so much with the “junk food” of the standard sort. One hideous evil I’ve managed to avoid my entire life long is the Big Vats of sugar water known as “soda”. I’ve always treated it like a dessert - I have about two cokes a year. I’m a water girl, although I do like juice, I don’t drink it regularly or in large amounts, it’s a sort of dessert thing as well. My fast food forays are burgers, no fries or sides, and fried chicken, no fries or sides.

My Carbs of Death are mostly breads (loves me some bread, sho’ nuff) and homemade sweet baked things. I even lost my taste for potatoes a few years ago.

503

This is from the 3,000 calorie challenge thread, I finally explained this in a way that I was reasonably satisfied with, so I wanted to put it here, too.

How the whole “fat first, overeat later/ calories don’t count” thing works:

The body’s regulation of fat is messed up, so the concept of “excess calories” falls apart.

Lean Larry and Beefy Bob both need 1500 calories to get through the day.

Lean Larry eats 1500 calories. His body burns them all as fuel.

Beefy Bob eats 1500 calories. His body burns 750 and turns 750 into fat. Bob has so little available to run his system, he slows down to compensate. He also gets very hungry, because his body didn’t let him burn all 1500 of those calories, even though he really needs 1500 calories, it stored them as fat. Since he did need them, but his body misapplied them, his body tells him to go eat more.

His body created the fat inappropriately because his fat regulation mechanisms are not functioning properly, because his diet, combined with his genetics that predispose him to fat regulation breakdown under certain conditions, combine to break down that fat regulation system and essentially “break” his body’s normal ability to correctly deal with his food. So his body takes perfectly normal, healthy, appropriate calories and inappropriately turns them into fat. Then, because Bob is now fatter, having been robbed of the calories he needed to function by his body’s messed up decision to take half of them and stuff them in his fat cells, his body tells him to go get more calories.

So to the naked eye, it appears that Bob eats too much and therefore he’s fat. But in fact, Bob’s fat, so he eats more. (Not “too much” - he’s eating what his body is telling him to eat after his body decided to make half his calories into fat.)
Conventional wisdom dictates that it’s Beefy Bob’s tough luck and he evidently needs to confine himself to 750 calories a day in order to avoid gaining weight, and 500 if he wants to lose. Obviously, since bob is tired and hungry eating 1500 calories, eating 750 calories is going to put him into a coma and when he wakes up he’s going to want to eat everything in sight. But conventional wisdom says that’s what he should do, and if he doesn’t, it’s because he’s weak-willed and self-indulgent.

But Bob’s body, given only 750 calories, will burn 300 and store the other 450 as fat. then Bob will grow weaker, more lethargic, and insanely hungry. If Bob fails to eat more calories, Bob’s body is likely to start breaking down Bob’s muscles and non-fat tissue for fuel, because Bob’s regulatory system for all this is fucked up and his body wants him to have a certain amount of fat, and will make sure he does, no matter how much ***or how little ***Bob actually eats.

Which explains why Bob finds it so incredibly difficult to lose weight. His body doesn’t want him to and makes him very miserable to keep him from doing so.

All this is a result of a very high carbohydrate diet, likely very high in very simple carbs, which cause Bob’s pancreas to send tons of insulin into his body to deal with the carbs. Insulin is the body’s primary fat-regulation hormone and it is responsible for this mayhem. The goal is to dial down insulin’s mayhem. So Bob needs to dial down the carbs until he finds what level of carbohydrate he can safely eat without triggering this messed up fat regulation system to inappropriately store his food as fat instead of burning it off.

So, if Bob might be able to safely consume 50 grams of high-fiber carbohydrate without causing the insulin mayhem, he will be able to eat whatever protein and fat he likes, because his body’s fat regulation mechanism will work correctly, burning, storing, and excreting whatever it needs to to keep his system at optimal function, including his weight. If he usually needs 1500 calories and he eats 2000, his correctly functioning fat regulation system will recognize Bob has no need for 500 calories of bodyfat, so it will burn them off and excrete them rather than store them.

This same correctly-functioning system will recognize, once it is pulled out of it’s carbohydrate -induced haze, that Bob’s body already has way more fat than Bob actually needs, so, even though Bob is eating his normally required 1500 daily calories, it will kick into gear and start burning off that excess.

And that is how and why a carb-restricting diet that pays no attention to calories works.

Of course this is insanely simplified, but the best I can do. If you want to know more, read this book.

504

If you, during maintenence, make sure it’s whole-wheat/grain added fiber bread it should be OK.

Taters, baked or boiled are pretty good, if you don’t load them down. Taters have a very high satiety rating, thus after eating a baked potato you feel full. Wendy’s “baked potato diet” that so many laughed at was on the right track- well, except for the 3oz of butter, sour cream & bacon.

Get those Yukon Gold taters and you can make do with a single pattys worth, and they are loaded with good stuff.

505

No, actually, I’ve followed along through it all.

(But thanks for the condescension, that’s always nice in the morning.)

I asked you a simple question regarding corn bread muffins, and am now assuming, (since you offer only sneers and no answer), that you’re full of hooey, like the people in the BBQ pit claim.

I wasn’t on board with them, so I came here to see for myself.

And then dared to ask a simple question - the nerve!

506

Sure, I’ll have a look at it. I’ll admit to being skeptical though. Take this quote from Stoid’s post:

This just seems wrong on the surface of it. First, he’s making it sound like you have to eat exactly x calories a day (lets say 1500), every day to not gain weight. 1520 calories will make you obese. But it’s the average calorie intake that matters - managing your calorie intake so it *averages *1500 calories instead of 1520 is not quite the tricky balancing act he suggests. He’s also ignoring the possibility of under-eating on some days.

Second, if you do consistently overeat and do end up gaining a few pounds, the number of calories you need for maintenance will go up. So, say I weigh 150 pounds and need 1500 calories to stay there*, if I eat 1520 calories I’ll gain weight (albeit very, very slowly). But when I hit 152 pounds, then I will be using all of the 1520 calories to maintain that. So in order to keep gaining I would need to keep increasing the number of calories I’m eating in order to keep up with the extra weight I’m carrying.

Third, he’s making it sound like lean people never vary at all in weight. The 20 calories he cites would result in 2 pounds of weight gain a year. Presumably 20 calories of under-eating would result in 2 pounds lost a year. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if many healthy lean people vary a pound or two in their weight from one year to the next.
Anyways, like I say, I’m open minded and I’ll look at the book. Furthermore, I readily admit that low carb works for some people, and despite your claims, Stoid, I have no interest in seeing you starve yourself. But if Taubes is starting from such shaky premises (that it’s impossible that a lean person could maintain their weight on the calories in-calories out system, and so there must be some other explanation), it’s kind of hard to believe.

*I’m making these specific numbers up by the way.

507

Here’s your question:

Here’s your answers:

First mention, Post #450

Seems self evident out the gate. I called it a “freebie”, which clearly indicates that I’m stepping outside the lines, giving myself permission, it’s not part of the plan.

Second mention, Post 457, from Labrador retriever:

Pretty much answers it.

Third mention, my thanking Labrador in Post 468

Labrador in 471:

Me in Post 486:

#489, Me again.

#491

So, after all that discussion in what, seven posts? - when someone comes along and says: “How is making a meal of 3 cornbread muffins with butter, following a low carb diet?” it seems very clear that they have absolutely not been following along “through it all” since it’s made very clear from the beginning and ever after that it is not following a low carb diet, it’s going outside it. Therefore you must be asking the question because you don’t want to be bothered to read anything, you want me to give you your own personal answers.

And yeah, that’s annoying.

508

I wish you luck, Stoid, but I seriously doubt you’ve been following your plan long enough, or closely enough, to see any real results. Stick with it, though.

509

The issue is not that you are going outside it; that’s a given. The issue will be if you experience that the diet works in spite of going outside it. This would tend to invalidate the theory behind the diet.

510

Read the whole book. And check out my post #503.

Take in the whole picture: Taubes argues, reasonably, that human beings are not some special order of animal that works in a way completely different from other animals, and other animals have fat regulation systems that work perfectly to keep them as fat or thin as they need to be, whether they have abundant food or not. So assuming, as the calories in/out theory does, that we only get fat because we have so much food we can’t help but overeat and then we get fat doesn’t actually make much sense.

My biggest problem with Taubes is actually the fact that he seems to completely ignore emotional eating, which I think can play a role, because I think I am an example.

I think there are basically two categories: people who are predisposed to gain weight because of their genetically vulnerable fat regulation system who “break” it via emotional eating of massive carbs, which quickly spirals in on itself, making a goddamn mess of things. That would be me. I was a very slim child who was indifferent to food until my parents split when I was six. (Both my parents had a predisposition to gain weight.) I discovered how soothing white toast with butter and pools of cinnamon sugar could be. This emotionally-driven overload of super simple carbohydrates messed up my fat metabolism, making me crave more on a biological level as well as an emotional one. So I ate more, craved it more, at more, craved it more. Then I was fat on top of messed up about my parents, and trying to navigate school. (I was also ridiculously tall; I was 5’7" at age 10. I was also very intelligent with a freakish vocabulary and the same willingness to go against the tide I am famous for here. Suffice it to say my youth was challenging, and I found comfort in food. Oh, and pile on to that almost no impulse control at all, due to ADD, and stick a fork in me, cuz I am done.)
(Fun tidbit:in 7th grade I started a new school and quickly identified the most popular girls, whom I of course longed to have as my friends. Fast forward to high school, and in fact we did become the closest of friends, and remain so to this very day, 40 years later. And the little 12 year old inside me sometimes goes “wow! Jane and Carrie are your best friends??? REALLY?” - all to say my social life did improve over time.)

Then there’s the other category. These people also have vulnerable fat metabolisms. But they didn’t screw them up by turning to food for emotional comfort, they screwed them up by following a modern diet bursting with simple sugars and carbs…then, when they gained, they went on low-fat, low-cal diets packed with carbs. They starved and got even hungrier and more screwed up. Then they got fatter when they stopped starving themselves. Then they started having to cope with shame and frustration because of their weight, making them even more messed up around food, which, like me, they find themselves craving intensely.And while we got their by different routes, we end at the same place.

When I was a girl, I was one of just a handful of fat kids. I assume all of us were emotional eaters or came from a family of emotional eaters that stuffed us early and often with boatloads of carbs, tripping our vulnerable fat systems.

These days, lots and lots of kids are fat. They are born fat. They are category two, along with all the adults who are obese these days that were not when I was young. (And when I was young, by the way, the conventional wisdom of how to diet was to cut out starch! And it worked, so we didn’t see the degree of super-obesity we do today, it was extremely rare, nearly unknown. Back then, you gained a little, you cut starch, you put your system back on track, you move forward. Today, you gain a little, you diet with carbs and you fuck your system up more, get fatter, fuck it up more, get fatter, fuck it up more…until, when you’re 50, you weigh 300 pounds and you have diabetes.)

So in the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter whether Taubes makes the distinction, because the result is the same.

511

By the way, a very serious question for those who still insist it’s all about energy balance.

What is your explanation for the people, and we all know them, who really can stuff themselves and never gain an ounce? He’s an imperfect example, because he’s an athlete, but supposedly Micheal Phelps could and did pack away 15,000 calories a day. Since super hard swimming burns about 600 calories an hour, even 10 solid, unbroken hours of swimming (which he did not do!) would only burn 6,000. Say his swimming burns 1000 an hour… he’s still 5,000 over if he swims 10 hours a day, and there’s no way he does. (Google says 6 hours).

But forget him… I think every one of us has known people who could scarf up prodigious amounts of food and remain slim. If calories in/out is the name of the game, how do you explain that? And if you explain that by saying that some people are fortunate enough to have freakyass fast metaboilisms that blaze through every excess calorie…what stops you from turning that over and seeing the other end of it, where unfortunate people have freakyass slow metabolisms that manage to turn a stalk of celery into fat?

Why “lucky bastard!” for the naturally thin, but “Self-indulgent fatass” for the naturally fat?

512

Thanks. I will. I feel very positive in a way I have not in a very long time.

513

Oh, I read it, but I’m still not understanding how you can go on and on, for pages and pages, extolling the virtues of this diet, this book, claiming you’re on a low carb diet. And it’s the most awesomest diet ever!

When, in fact, it turns out you’re on an awesome low carb diet, except, ‘to keep from going crazy’, or when you’ve, ‘given yourself permission’, to eat corn bread and butter - as a meal!

Is that in the book?

You seriously think the problem with the other diets you’ve tried is the diets and not you?

'Cause it kind of sounds like it’s the, ‘to keep from going crazy’ and ‘giving myself permission’, rationalizations is what’s making all your diets fail, in my opinion.

I totally understand that strict dieting is hard, that people are only people, everyone needs a little treat, outside the diet dictates, from time to time. To my thinking that would mean breaking down and having a small cornbread muffin with diet spread. Not making a meal of them, slathered in butter.

But hey, you keep on keeping on, with the brilliant rationalizations, they are truly striking.

I wish you nothing but luck.

514

I want to make sure that something is very clear for the gallery: there is no “diet”, per se. Taubes explains how the body works in relation to food and carbs. Armed with that information, each person needs to find out on their own what works in their lives.

Some people will find that they can’t eat any carbs at all beyond some green veges.

Some people will find they can do “the carbohydrate Addict’s Diet”, which says low carb for two meals, make the third a “reward” meal with a nice portion of carbs, balanced with protein and fat.

Still others will find that if they just stop eating all forms of highly processed simple carbs and shift to high fiber, whole carbs in balance with fat and protein, that will work.

So if, in this case, I can stay low carb 6 days a week, and on Sunday splurge on ice cream or pasta or corn bread, and still lose weight, it does not invalidate the theory of carb restriction at all. Not even a little. It just means that I am fortunate enough that if I restrict for 6 days, I can get away with not restricting on the 7th. And that actually makes sense, really. If I can stay committed to carb restricted eating over a long enough period of time, my body should, one hopes, get better at managing an occasional carb overload, just like the bodies of people who dont’ have weight problems.

Just like my problem got worse the more I lived it, it might get better the longer I act consistently to correct it.

515

Thanks, elbows.

516

Stoid, I’m kind of interested as to why you felt like the cornbread would keep you from, “going crazy.”

I am highly carb addicted and I’m trying to low-carb it right now. I am also an emotional eater. Whenever I feel a strong emotional desire to eat carbs I just force myself to eat a cheese stick or a piece of chicken, and it takes the edge off.

Do you think you could try something like that the next time you feel like you need something carb-rich to stay sane? Or some other kind of quick-to-eat and satiating low-carb food?

Oh yeah and my ADD also makes impulse control v. difficult. Again, somehow eating something fatty when I have a compulsion to eat helps.

517

I seriously think you should write a book. How hard could it be, hell, you’ve almost written one here!

518

I’m not sure, really. Might be a kind of defiant thing. Food is important to me on many levels. I’m a “foodie”, I love to cook - there’s nothing like cooking for people you care about, it’s a marvelous gift, and I’m fortunate (??) that it is something I am particularly good at. It interests me the way it interests lots of people who have no weight problems, they just love food and cooking, and I become fearful that because of my weight issues I will have to give it up entirely, so to speak, in that I will never be able to “safely” indulge my desires to cook and bake and share yummy things that fall far outside a carb-restricted life. (though I’ll still be able to make what many people have called the best ribs they’ve ever eaten… :wink: )

So far I’m doing ok, really. Way saner about the whole issue of food now that I’m not obsessively tracking calories. It’s a process, and I’m happy to even feel hopeful. I had reached a sort of uneasy peace with the idea that this was beyond me, I would probably just die sooner than I’d like. I dont’ feel that way anymore, and that’s the first time I’ve believed it was possible for me to make real change in many years.

We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll stumble, but I hope I’ll be able to get back up quickly.

519

You may not be one of those people, though. What I and others have found is that some people cannot afford to cheat at all, because their weight loss will stall. The best way to find out what works best for you is to (surprise) basically do the Atkins plan, which is to severely restrict carbs for two weeks (this means no cheating, not once) and then gradually increase your daily carb limit until you determine what the maximum amount of carbs you can eat per day and still lose weight is, and then drop below that to continue losing weight. This may be a very low number – you might stop losing weight at over 30g carb/day. You might be able to go up to 50g/carb or even 100g/carb a day. You will never know if you sabotage your diet after one week.

If you restrict carbs throughout the week and then splurge on the weekend, you will knock yourself out of ketosis and have to start all over again. It takes a few days of eating low-carb to get back into ketosis…at which point, splurging again will take you back to square one.

If you feel like you need a treat or need an excuse to splurge after one week of restricting your foods, you will have to find a treat that does not involve carbs. Hard alcohol has no carbs – there’s a treat. Making yourself a low-carb dessert with almond flour and splenda – there’s a treat. Not treating yourself with food but with some new clothes, a book, a movie with friends – there’s a treat.
And also, the cool thing about the diet is that it regulates itself. After eating low-carb for a while (i.e., longer than a week, for pete’s sake), when you do eat carbs again, you tend to feel like shit. I had lasagna for the first time in over six months this past Tuesday as a Mardi Gras treat, and afterwards I felt like my stomach was going to explode and I almost fell asleep at 6:30 pm. So, shit, I don’t even have to create elaborate thought patterns to get myself to avoid carbs – I just remind myself that they make me feel terrible. I was reading the “Favorite Easter Candy” thread in CS and drooling over the memory of Cadbury mini-eggs, but I will not buy them this year – not just because they’ll ruin my diet and keep me from losing weight, but because I will physically feel ill after eating them.

520

Hmmm. Ya never know!