You make this comment every time one of these threads comes up, and it’s starting to get a bit absurd.
Yes, for the vast majority of people who are overweight, they eat too much and don’t exercise enough. No argument from me.
However, you consistently refuse to acknowledge that there are medical conditions that make it impossible to eat few enough calories to maintain a “normal” weight. If a persons metabolism is so slow that they only burn 300 calories per day, they will gain weight regardless of their willpower or amount of exercise they get.
Even anorexics, who have the mother lode of willpower when it comes to eating, eat more than 300 calories worth of food a day. (On average – yes I know that anorexics can go more than a day without eating.)
The answer in this sort of situation is not “Eat less, exercise more.” The answer is “Treat the underlying medical condition so that more than 300 calories are burned.” Your refusal to acknowledge this always blows my mind.
I don’t know much about food addiction. I did a little googling on it and came up with a lot of ‘success’ stories about people overcoming it and going on to lose weight. Therefore, I wouldn’t include it as a medical reason since it seems like you can overcome it with willpower. Unlike say a thyroid problem which you would have no control over.
If alcohol addiction is a disease so is food addiction. So an **untreated ** medical condition such as food addiction (like an untreated condition like hypothyroidism) causes obesity, you could count those cases toward “obesity due to medical problems”.
The OP didn’t specify medical problems that have been treated with the obesity persisting. But I am aware that this condition is not necessarily considered a “medical problem” since it is partly psychological and can therefore be overcome by “willpower”…like depression. Not.
And 1200 calories and 1.5 hours of exercise daily with weight problems persisting? I don’t see what else you could do, and this seems like the epitome of what the OP is looking for.
Actually, I’m looking for a sense of how common it is. Not if it exists at all. Some in this thread would put the incidence of obesity due to medical reasons at 0%, but I don’t agree with that. True food addiction is fairly rare though, isn’t it? So it really doesn’t change things much if you do consider it medical.
If you mean Prader-Willi, it’s 1 in 14,000 in the US. So yeah, only 20,000 people.
“Compulsive overeating might be the most common eating disorder in the United States, where as many as 4 million adults struggle with the disorder. About 15 percent of the mildly obese who try to lose weight on their own or with commercial products have the disorder, and the rates are said to be higher among the severely obese.”
This is an honest GQ question and isn’t directed at anyone in particular. It seems like some people are claiming that they violate the laws of thermodynamics. If someone has a normal body temperature and moves around at least as much as the average person, how can they do it on say 600 calories a day or only 25% of the energy it takes a normal person? Something isn’t right. The energy has to come from somewhere and brain activity and body temperature maintenance alone should eat up that many calories by itself.
Even still, assuming your body needs only needs 1000 calories a day or so, why couldn’t you go lower? People keep talking about it being dangerous to live on 1000 a day but that is for a normal person. That many calories is obviously sufficient or their weight wouldn’t maintain its current level or even go up. I can see a problem with vitamins but that could be taken care of with pills. What is wrong with say, a 900 calorie a day diet if that is just the your your body works?
Finally, it doesn’t matter who you are, a pound of fat takes the same amount of calories just to exist. How are people producing all this excess fat on what seems like little to no raw material?
This thread could benefit from input from some genuinely medically knowledgeable Dopers. I hope some will appear and contribute!
Shagnasty, I kind of see your point, but OTOH why isn’t the standard recommendation for obesity “just don’t eat until you reach your goal weight”?
There seems to be some minimal amount you do need to eat to stay alive. And WAGs from us non-medical folk seem somewhat cruel to those who really do have metabolic problems. If someone is medically recommended to eat 1200 or 1600 calories a day (NOT a lot of food) maybe there is a reason why they can’t just cut down to 600-800 calories a day. Maybe muscle mass or immune function or something starts to go below that point?
Certainly with hypothyroidism, things AREN’T functioning normally. Chronic headaces, fatigue, chilled temperature, etc, etc. all make moving around or acting in any way normal monumental challenges.
Add this to the fact that symptoms sort of creep up on you, and a healthy active person all of a sudden can’t get out of bed even to go to work.
Regarding eating less than 1000 calories a day - I put on weight with my hypothyroidism - maybe 15 lbs. Conventional “Eat less, exercise more” advice wasn’t working, and I’m the vainest person alive, so I cut my diet until I started losing weight - I ate about 600-700 calories a day and it did, in fact work. However, if I ate less than that I would get light headed. Furthermore, I used to be anorexic, so I have infinately more willpower when it comes to food than the average bear.
I never said differently - in fact, I’m pretty sure I agreed with you.
My objection is not that you sprout this fact ad nausium, it’s that you ignore the 0.1% of the population for whom that is not the case - about 200,000 people in the US, if my math is correct.
The point is pretty clear, the type of food you eat, the amount of calories you eat, will determine how your body burns calories. A simple example, go on a starvation diet and you won’t loose weight that fast, as you body will adjust, your metobilism will slow (or become more efficient).
The simple equation of calories in - calories burned (and excreated) = stored calories is true and also satifies the conversation of mass and energy equations, but in reality have very very little to do with real world weight loss to the point that it can be almost disregarded and kind of silly to bring up.
A more practical statement is what you consume will effect your metobilism and your hunger responce which has a coorilation to weight management.
Would you count problems that impede exercise, like leg, foot, or hip problems? These can cause weight gain by impeding exercise. This is why it’s so important to be careful embarking on exercise programs; if you aren’t careful you may end up fatter than when you started.
I am 6’1’’ 350lbs and exercise and eat right and I am still obese. I don’t have any medical problems other than a bad back and I can’t shake this weight no matter what I do. I don’t overeat (no, I’m not lying to you or myself) and I am not lazy, it just won’t come off me.
I have been trying to get the gastric bypass for three years now, but keep getting denied because all my insurance is private and insurance companies deny people’s private insurance quicker than they will someone who has it through a large company for fear of losing that policy with that company.
Obesity is tough, it really is and I don’t know what causes mine, I really don’t. All this scientific jargon and double talk is just that, talk. Until someone personally experiences just how rough it is mentally and physically, they can’t begin to know what it’s like, or know the answers. Not all obesity is related to laziness and overeating. This isn’t directed at any one person, I’m just stating my personal experience and knowledge with this issue.
Your lack of logic astounds me. I agree that most people who are heavy are so because they eat a lot and sit on their butts. However, you completely ignored the section of my post wherein I explained that my medical condition causes weight gain despite eating many less calories and exercising much more than most slender adults. I am unable to eat fewer calories than I am because I have been advised that my doctor that important organs, like the brain, cannot function without some intake of proteins and fats. I suppose I COULD quit my job and hope someone would support me while I devote my entire day to exercising, but I’d really hate to take advantage of the welfare system.
For those who are interested in the “why,” with PCOS your body cannot correctly process carbohydrates. Unfortunately, carbohydrates are in everything from lettuce to fruit (not to mention the obvious things like beans, pasta, and potatoes). So, since my body cannot properly process carbohydrates, they are stored as fat. Meat is about the only thing that I can eat without worry. Of course, too much meat is not good for you either, so I’m in quite a pickle.
By the way, thanks to alice in wonderland for being rational!
Depending on your definition of “overeat,” yes, you do. You eat the same amount of calories or more calories than you expend. If you ate fewer calories than you expended, it would be impossible for your average weight to remain the same or grow.
No jargon, no doubletalk: You are eating more calories than your body is using. Period.
I was fat. I ate too much. I stopped eating too much. I’m no longer fat. As Crafter_man said, 99.9% of obesity is as simple as eating more calories than your body is using. The only energy source your body has is food. The only energy output your body has is exercise and the various body excretions. What else is there?
PCOS sounds like the sort of condition that the Atkin’s diet was designed for (ie a condition of compromised carbohydrate use similar to diabetes). Do PCOS sufferers have a specific diet that reduces the carbohydrates that your bodies don’t utalise properly?
PCOS also seems to be very common, but obviously only amongst women. If it were a major contributor to the obesity pandemic we seem to be facing in the West then there would need to be some other cause effecting men and not women. Otherwise we would expect to see a much higher incidence of obesity in women than in men.
(people saying they get by on 800 calories or less)
This always puzzles me.
Assuming 1 lb of fat has the exact same calories, with no variation. (could there possibly be variation due to some people creating fat that holds much more water?), there is the normal 98ish degrees of normal human metabolism. That takes a specific amount of energy dependent on body weight and composition alone. This can be measured in individuals by measuring VO2, and has been done so much that there is pretty much an agreed upon average based on height and weight. People vary in numbers, but it is not by signifigant amounts. It takes me 1800 calories a day just to exist. Of course I am 185lbs and 5’9. Any moving around increases that figure, but assuming you were 5’0 and 100 lbs, that mass has to be heated, your blood has to pumped and your brain needs energy. By measuring the Oxygen used, they can determine EXACTLY how much energy you need. You can subside on less for a period of time due to fat stores and muscle stores. You suffer though because you lose muscle mass, bone density and other problems could arise.
Do I think you need 300 calories to exist? No way! My dog needs more than that or he gets too skinny (and he isnt’ THAT active), and I guarentee he weighs at least half what you weigh. (unless you are under 90lbs).
I mean, the body is complex with lots of actions and interactions, but energy in, energy out is still a factor. There is no way one 120lb woman can consume half the calories and survive of another 120lb woman of the same height. (for any length of time of course)
Now, I don’t know how well people count calories, but most are terrible at it. If you ask around, most people think they are eating around 2k calories, while many are consuming half again as much. That latte you drink may contain 1200 calories alone. I had one friend say he ate 800 calories a day but still gained weight. He is 6’3 and like 240lbs. No way he was surviving on 800 calories a day and gaining weight. So I drilled him and figured out he was really consuming like 3000+ calories per day and just didn’t calculate them. Estimating is bad and if you aren’t careful you can eat a lot more than your goal.
I agree though, it is more complex than calories in, calories burned. But it insults even my intelligence to suggest that your body “gets more energy out of food than everybody else” (what, is your body performing nucular fission? Glycolysis only produces a specific amount of “energy”), or that “my medical condition makes me suck fat out of the netherworld, and I am not really eating anything, fat just magically appears.”
It’s funny… people always want to absolve themselves from responsibility every chance they get. The worst offenders are the people who say, “I’m obese. And it’s not my fault!! Diets don’t work for me!!” :rolleyes:
My 350 lb. aunt has been claiming this for 10 years. “I’m fat because I have a thyroid condition! It’s not my fault! I’m a victim! Diets don’t work for me!!” About five years ago I was over at their house. I open the fridge to get beers for me and my uncle. In the fridge were 3 jars of mayonnaise, a huge store-bought cake, a half-eaten pie, whole milk, etc. The freezer was stocked full of frozen french fries and ice cream. (I just had to look.) She still claims she has a “condition” that keeps her fat, but I know better.
However, your aunt being delusional does not change the fact that their are people for whom weight loss is not as easy as “Eat less, exercise more.”
Furthermore, despite having hypothyroidism I am not obese. I’m very fit and slim.
Mind you, I consume about 600 calories a day, and run about 4 miles. I don’t expect that’s realistic for the vast majority of the population. Furthermore, I take medication for my condition. It works wonders for my energy level, headaches, etc, etc. However, it doesn’t do shit for my metabolism.