Overweight due to metabolism/hormones/thyroid etc.

[JcWoman]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I’m not sure about this.

I actually have a 13 year old daughter who is slightly chubby and could lose a few pounds. But my wife is adamant that based on everyone she knows - both as kids and now children of her friends - aggressively pushing kids to lose weight invariably backfires. It makes food much more tempting, and becomes a control/power issue as well. Bottom line is that kids whose parents pressure them about food get messed up in the head and spend their lives in a losing battle with food and weight.

I think this partially true. Aggressively pushing kids to lose weight, making snide comments about the child’s appearance (not you, but I’ve heard of people who do this) turns food into a power/control issue for the child. But on the other hand, encouraging the child to stuff herself at every meal like my parents did is also extremely bad. Both unhealthy ends of the spectrum, while healthy lies somewhere in the middle.

@Fotheringay-Phipps

[Disclaimer: I’ve never been more than 10-15 pounds overweight in my life, so the above doesn’t represent any sort of experience that’s directly applicable to obese people. But I do maintain a quasi-diet of sorts - I call it the “X pound diet” (X being my target weight). Every morning I get on a scale, and if I weigh more than X then I’m on a diet that day and don’t eat any snacks or the like, while if I weigh less than X then I’m not on any sort of diet. Seems to be working. :)]

With respect to you, I think you’re just lucky. I’ve done what you call your X diet also and it doesn’t work for me. When I check my weight weekly doing a healthy eating plan like Weight Watchers, my weight varied by -1.5 to +2.5 each week. That’s weekly as opposed to your daily, but it was still strict monitoring tied with controlled consumption.

[filmore]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

My own feeling is that for long term success the general rule is that eating less is successful and eating healthy/dietetic is not.

The reason is that eating less gets easier over time and eating healthy/dietetic gets harder. People who eat less have their stomachs contract and this suppresses their appetites and makes the diet easier. Meanwhile people who eat healthy/dietetic get increasing sick of the bland food they’re eating, which makes sticking to the diet harder and harder over time.

I think the success of each strategy will highly depend on the level of “addiction” to food the individual has. Different weight problems will succeed with different solutions.

As an analogy, think of people who have problems with alcohol. Some people are party drinkers where they drink to excess just in certain situations. Others are alcoholics whose lives are centered around alcohol. The party drinker can be cured by some behavior modification to stay out of party situations or limit their drinking. But it is unlikely that alcoholic will be ever be cured to the point where they can drink responsibly and not crave it.

I think food can be similar. Some people gain weight because they are not paying attention. They are sedentary and aren’t mindful of their diet and portions, so weight creeps up on them. By introducing simple behavior changes such as exercise and healthy diet, they can manage their weight without drastic lifestyle changes. But other people are much more obsessed about food. It seems like they have an addiction similar to the alcoholic or drug addict. Just like you can’t expect the alcoholic to just drink less or the addict to just do their drugs less often, the food addict will need to make drastic changes. They would need to do something like commit to a drastic diet change which does not induce the cravings or get surgery so that eating too much causes distress.

One major problem we have in today’s society is that peoples’ weight creeps up so much that their body creates metabolic changes to stay at that weight. They go from being a thoughtless eater to being food obsessed. If they managed their weight early on, they might not have ever developed their food addition. It’s like if someone never tried heroin they would never become an addict. Undoubtedly, there are some people who are born with the genetics to be obese, but for many people it’s a condition they slowly slip into and then fight to get out of.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@JcWoman

With respect to you, I think you’re just lucky. I’ve done what you call your X diet also and it doesn’t work for me. When I check my weight weekly doing a healthy eating plan like Weight Watchers, my weight varied by -1.5 to +2.5 each week. That’s weekly as opposed to your daily, but it was still strict monitoring tied with controlled consumption.

It might be easier if it’s done on a daily versus weekly basis. Because if you do it on a weekly basis, you could find yourself a week removed from any sort of diet and harder to get back into it, plus you’re also possibly further above the goal which makes the prospect of catching up again more daunting. If you do it daily, you never get too far above and are always sort of semi-dieting.

But I’m probably a bit lucky too. In general I’ve never been much of a food-oriented person.

[jjakucyk]

@gigi

I am obese because I eat too much, not because of the thyroid.

But see that’s part of what we’ve been talking about. Might the thyroid hormones be what’s making you want to eat too much?

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I actually have a 13 year old daughter who is slightly chubby and could lose a few pounds.

Kids tend to pork up a bit before growth spurts/puberty. Boys especially, but girls seem to as well. If it’s fairly recent that may be all it is.

[SpoilerVirgin]

@JcWoman

Over my adult life I’ve tried all the sensible diets (Weight Watchers) and good nutrition. At various times I’ve cut out excess salt, sugar, cut down on meat, cut down on carbs, cut down on alchohol. Stopped consuming sodas permanently and now they taste horrible to me. So what I am eating now is primarily whole foods, cooked at home. And I’m at my heaviest in my life right now and look horrible. Last year I decided to stop listening to armchair nutritionists and went to an actual dietition/nutritionist. She told me that in order to lose weight I just have to be hungry all the time. So that was less than helpful, too, and I haven’t been back.

So I’m going to go against my own advice, and just ask: have you ever tried therapy? Just going to a therapist (can be a psychologist or LCSW) and trying to work on the mental side rather than the physical? If other approaches haven’t worked for you (I was on Weight Watchers three times, and more other attempts than I can count), it might be worth trying. Bonus that might appeal: I have been at a healthy weight since 2008, and I have not weighed myself one single time. I also don’t have to weigh or count my food, except when I decide that would be easiest for me. And I am amost never hungry except right before a meal.

[Ambivalid]

@jjakucyk

But see that’s part of what we’ve been talking about. Might the thyroid hormones be what’s making you want to eat too much?

I looked it up and was surprised to learn that over 3 million people are affected with hypothyroidism, with the majority being women. So unless she’s already been screened for it, it might not be a bad idea to get it checked out.

ETA: however, ISTM that if it was indeed hypothyroidism, you’d be experiencing other side effects than just gaining weight (feeling extremely cold is a big one).

[doubleminus]

Unfortunately, the only thing that really works for long term obese people is bariatric surgery (gastric bypass). As much as I know, it is not really understood why this works, although a few of the hormones involved, neural pathways and feedback loops are known, and more are very intensively researched.

Nutrition is a hugely complex field, maybe the mostly distinctive research field in which so much nonsense was preached by scientists (albeit most in good faith). It was intuitive to all, and the biology/biochemistry undergraduate looking at the metabolism charts believed all was there. But no, evolution worked real hard on this one.

A bit like Fermat’s Last Theorem. Hopefully, some time we’ll know how to control weight and appetite safely by pharmacological means.

[CharmaChameleon]

I’ve read the comments through this entire thread, and I will call “horse-crap” on nearly everything I’ve read, with very few exceptions.

A little more than a year ago I took a decision to take control of whatever it was that was contributing to my overweight condition. That decision was to undertake a new lifestyle that excluded utterly and completely three things (only three):

[ol]
[li]Polyunsaturated vegetable oils[/li][li]Starches[/li][li]Sugars[/li][/ol]

That is all. This is not a “diet”, but a new eating lifestyle. But what did I use to replace those three little things? That’s easy, too:[ol]
[li]High Fat Foods (meats, fish, chicken, cheese, eggs, and the like)[/li][li]No fats other than those derived (without hydrogenation) from meats and certain plants: pork lard, beef tallow, butter, avocado oil, walnut oil, etc.[/li][li]Stevia, Truvia, and asparatame as sweeteners[/li][li]All the green vegetables growing above the soil I wanted[/li][/ol]

What things are in the first list, and what things in the second? Look at the lists, and understand them, please.

The first thing was to start reading ingredients lists assiduously, disregard any “food” that contained the three verboten ones. Then revisit foods that fit into the second list of allowed ones. Easy enough, right? Yes, if you care enough and want to take the time.

In 1978, at a weight of 270 lb., I first studiously approached this lifestyle. On January 1 of that year I was a final term college senior, miserable in just about every way, and understanding that I would soon be teaching teenagers and younger children (who were and are little known for their kindness and sensitivity), so I knew it was time to “do something”. Then, on January 1, 1978, I leapt into whatever the void might be.

That day I consumed a couple of eggs, bacon, a large steak, and salad. Before 2:00 PM I was full until the next day. This had been a lifestyle adjustment, and it paid dividends:

On July 1, 1979, my weight was 169 pounds.

I had not “cheated”, not taken “skip days”, just followed the idea. Had I stayed with it as a “lifestyle” and not as a “diet”, my weight might not have fluctuated between 180 and 240 lbs. for the next 37 years.

At the early age of 65, I suspected strongly that my wife was about to leave me and undertake living on her own again. (Now there is no suspicion; it is a fact). I had already undertaken this lifestyle, and it was working just fine. In fact she did leave me after I had removed a few pounds of ugly fat.

(I haven’t disclosed yet my weight on March 16, 2016. Not now. Nor my weight this morning; wait for it, please.)

I call this a lifestyle change for a good reason, and do not permit people to call it a “diet”, for “diet” is a word describing a thing it is expected to fail doing. You know it’s true. This time it was different.

On October 8, 2016, my weight was ~145 lb. On January 1, 2017, it was ~135 lb. The readings for the last few days have been:[ol]
[li]March 16 (2016): 206 lb.[/li][li]March 12: 130.6 lb.[/li][li]March 13: 129.4 lb.[/li][li]March 14 (today) 128.4 lb.[/li][/ol]

The body has a “set point”, a weight the body wants to weigh. The mind opposes that by demanding “satisfying, tasty food” (even to the destruction of the body that sustains it).

You, and I, control our minds. That’s all there is to it, you know. Our minds will stand in the way of learning anything we can about latter-age diabetes, coronary artery disease, a defective metabolism, and all the rest of it. Our minds, I think, desire above all to be protected and comfortable.

Here it is: You are in control of you, and that includes your mind and your body. But you are in control, and will learn what you need to learn, and then, if your spirit and soul are strong enough, YOU WILL TAKE CONTROL OF IT ALL.

If you will ignore that FACT, then “something else” will control ALL of YOU.

The ball is in your court now.

[Ambivalid]

Nm.

[kambuckta]

My (anecdotal) testimony is that I started using pred-forte cortisone eye drops one week, and stacked on 5kg by the same day the following week. I have since LOST 3kg of that fluid…

[gigi]

@jjakucyk

But see that’s part of what we’ve been talking about. Might the thyroid hormones be what’s making you want to eat too much?

I don’t think so. Food has always been my greatest love so it’s mostly emotional for me.

@CarmaChameleon

Here it is: You are in control of you, and that includes your mind and your body. But you are in control, and will learn what you need to learn, and then, if your spirit and soul are strong enough, YOU WILL TAKE CONTROL OF IT ALL.

If you will ignore that FACT, then “something else” will control ALL of YOU.

The ball is in your court now.

I’m happy that something works for you and that you are able to make a lifestyle change. But calling everything else “horse-crap” and essentially calling for will-power again (in different words, but the same idea) isn’t helpful.

[Slash1972]

@doubleminus

Unfortunately, the only thing that really works for long term obese people is bariatric surgery (gastric bypass). As much as I know, it is not really understood why this works, although a few of the hormones involved, neural pathways and feedback loops are known, and more are very intensively researched

I thought it worked by making the stomach smaller, thereby reducing the amount of food intake?

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

I had a related thought the other day. I’ve known various Holocaust survivors over the years - guys who’ve gone through concentration camps, not to mention various Nazi ghettos on starvation diets - and they’ve had a tendency to thinness. Certainly not in the other direction. And if there was anyone who metabolism you would think would have learned to slow down and become more efficient it would be these guys.

One of my kids suggested that because I’ve tended to know these people when they were old, it might be that they’re not representative, in that the fatter people died off earlier. But we couldn’t come up with anything else.

[Lumpy]

Maybe for the rest of their lives they unconsciously “conserved food” like they never knew if or when there’d be more?

[md2000]

@Lumpy

Maybe for the rest of their lives they unconsciously “conserved food” like they never knew if or when there’d be more?

One of my nieces was a Korean orphan adopted at about age 2 or 3 (they don’t know for sure). Even when she was 7 or 8 she was still in the habit of hiding food under her bed (where it would rot) an instinctive behavior learned at a very early age due to starvation. So I’d be inclined to think concentration camp survivors would probably be more inclined to worry about food for tomorrow than gorging today?

In “The Case Against Sugar” the author suggests that what foods you eat are probably more relevant to causing obesity that how many calories. (Guess what he blames for obesity?) He suggests that “all calories are equal” is a myth.

I know (anecdotal evidence again) I went from 235 to 208lb with the Atkins Diet when it was first a fad; but that could have been exacerbated by reduced caloric intake, since it was difficult to eat much following the diet, and it certainly eliminated a lot of snack opportunities. Of course I put it back on after. Cross country skiing 30km a weekend or hours rollerblading did not do much for my weight, nor did swimming a kilometer several times a week - my weight was pretty steady. On a recent vacation I went from 275 to 256lb simply because we eliminated snacks to a great extent, and tended to eat a lot less (share a Big Mac or a split a clubhouse dinner from rooms service); walking 20km to 30km a day also probably helped.

[ivylass]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I had a related thought the other day. I’ve known various Holocaust survivors over the years - guys who’ve gone through concentration camps, not to mention various Nazi ghettos on starvation diets - and they’ve had a tendency to thinness. Certainly not in the other direction. And if there was anyone who metabolism you would think would have learned to slow down and become more efficient it would be these guys.

Could their metabolism have been screwed up due to starvation?

[DSeid]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I had a related thought the other day. I’ve known various Holocaust survivors over the years - guys who’ve gone through concentration camps, not to mention various Nazi ghettos on starvation diets - and they’ve had a tendency to thinness. Certainly not in the other direction. And if there was anyone who metabolism you would think would have learned to slow down and become more efficient it would be these guys.

One of my kids suggested that because I’ve tended to know these people when they were old, it might be that they’re not representative, in that the fatter people died off earlier. But we couldn’t come up with anything else.

Possibly related, I don’t know, but male Holocaust survivors tend to live longer than same aged peers.

Also possibly related is the impact on stress hormone levels of having survived the Holocaust and on their children.

[Sage_Rat]

If obesity was caused by genetics, then there wouldn’t be a discrepancy between different nations. Yet, if you go to countries like Japan, France, Germany, etc. you’ll find that everyone is (what Americans would call) skinny, on the whole. Men and women do start to get a bit of a paunch when they get older, and certainly there are some people who are overweight when they are young, but the median is much lower than in the US and the percentage of people who are overweight is significantly less. You would be hard pressed to find someone who is morbidly obese.

There was a man named Daniel Lambert, at the end of the 18th century, who was famous throughout the UK for being morbidly obese. It was something quite exceptional. In today’s America, it is generally not going to be hard to find many individuals of comparable shape. And while it may be that these people have a slower metabolism than the average, it would require a change to the laws of physics for someone to put on weight without consuming more energy than they expend. While it may be psychologically or even physically uncomfortable to reduce calorie intake, reduced calorie consumption will always be sufficient for losing weight.

It’s difficult to lose weight via exercise. Running (i.e. jogging) for an hour consumes about 400 calories. That’s just not a lot when a single candy bar is 300 calories or a small bag of chips is 160. American foods are amazingly calorie dense compared to their size and our portion sizes are, on average, probably double what you get in Europe and Japan at the minimum. Cutting back means ignoring half or more of everything on your plate at every single meal, including snacks. That’s a lot more than most people are expecting when talking about “cutting back”.

Recommended calories are also vastly different from what they probably should be. I believe that the target values are based on soldiers, from the 50s. These are physically active people in their prime. Your average person today, even if they exercise for an hour, simply isn’t going to be anywhere near as active as your average soldier. And anyone over ~30 is going to see their metabolism slow down significantly (ergo, the paunch that we see in other nations), so the recommended rate would change again based on your age.

I eat probably 1/3rd to 1/2 of the recommended calorie intake and I’m struggling to keep my paunch from taking purchase. It’s far better to pay attention to what your body is doing than to the recommended caloric intake (unless you have an eating disorder). Though, do pay attention to the vitamin requirements.

[DSeid]

@Sage_Rat

If obesity was caused by genetics, then there wouldn’t be a discrepancy between different nations. …

Full stop incorrect (barring the straw man position that obesity is exclusively caused by genetics).

What is clearly genetic is a relative resistance to and predisposition to obesity given an obesogenic environment.

This is not at all a controversial concept.

What environments are obesogenic, why, how that interacts with genetic, epigenetic, and endocrinologic factors, and how various countries are changing … those are to me interesting questions.

[Sage_Rat]

@DSeid

What is clearly genetic is a relative resistance to and predisposition to obesity given an obesogenic environment.

This is not at all a controversial concept.

My argument was that obesity is principally an environmental issue, with genetics playing a secondary role in determining how much that factors in to things.

Your argument would seem to be that obesity is genetic, given an environment that encourages obesity.

Outside of terminology and word order, I’m not seeing any meaningful difference between your argument nor mine, let alone making an outright rejection of mine.