# Stoid, Are You Still Confident that You Know a Lot about Diet and Obesity? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 12, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100 "2013-02-12T18:34:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/141 "2013-06-16T04:14:39Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > If she feels the need to take a 2-5 day vacation from her diet every month or two, it is my opinion that she is not in a position to pretend she knows much of anything about the subject. Which subject, losing weight? Done it plenty, including days off. Keeping weight off? Done it, in spite of eating whatever I liked much of the time. (See post earlier today.) Maintaining strict adherence to a rigid eating plan from which I only deviate by the degree and schedule you believe correct? No, but then I never sought to. ---
**Author:** ![Athabasca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Athabasca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athabasca)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/142 "2013-06-16T04:35:55Z")
Stoid, About low carb, lower carb, high carb, etc, I could drag out a gram counter but I would prefer not to. With the amount of legumes, starchy veg, breads, and fruit I eat now, while maintaining a steadily moderate weight loss, I doubt that i am following a low carb plan. Comparing the restrictive plan I used to follow, with what I do now, it just doesn’t compute. But that is a relative thing, and the gram counter shouldn’t have to come into it. Now, being 30 lbs overweight perhaps might not qualify me as obese, but I think anyone with a moderate to significant amount of weight to lose is qualified to offer the model for weight loss which works on an individual level, and which could be extrapolated to other cases. So, I am not sure I understand what qualifiers I have to have, from your point of view, to offer a worthy model. Is it just being obese? Or are there other factors? And if I don’t have those qualifiers, then by the same token, are you not equally disqualified from providing your model to others if they are not exactly as you? I am interested to know. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/143 "2013-06-16T04:47:42Z")
Additionally, you are suffering from the same foggy understanding of the topic that Brazil is: > [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > how much can you say you’ve learned about eating well and maintaining a healthy lifestyle… if you’re unable to find a diet you can stick with? What a person learns and knows about weight loss isn’t erased by their inability to permanently stick with any particular diet. Its such a strange idea… Do you think someone who loses 100 pounds on, for instance, Weight Watchers, but then stops following the plan and gains it all back has somehow “forgotten” the things they learned? Or is it that they simply stopped following the plan? Does it mean that the plan is not valid, since the person who was on it stopped being on it? Because the people who have lost weight on the Weight Watchers plan that gain it back, and the people who lost weight on the weight watchers plan and not gained it back have precisely the same “knowledge” regarding the plan, and the eating plan itself worked for both of them. You and Brazil seem to equate “valid knowledge of how to lose weight” with “knowing” some way of losing weight that somehow undoes whatever circumstances existed that led to the weight gain initially, that “cures” them permanently so that they no longer struggle, and that anything less means they don’t know anything. You further seem to operate from a very narrow understand of all the different factors at work in obesity, apparently believing that there is some “knowledge” that, if truly _valid_, will fix _all_ of those factors, as though obesity were like rickets, and the knowledge of what foods to eat will lead to a cure and theres nothing else to it. Do you believe that anorexics fail to really understand that they need to eat more in order to avoid dying, and that once they have that knowledge, they will be cured? ---
**Author:** ![PBear42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PBear42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PBear42)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/144 "2013-06-16T06:25:45Z")
Can’t remember the last time I wandered into the Pit (was bored tonight). Have to say, beating up on overweight people because they generally have little success keeping off losses is a cheap shot. It’s well known. No credit for the insight. If the critics have a solution, there are a whole lot of afflicted people who would be interested. If not, you’re just kicking folks who are down. Shame on you. FWIW, this isn’t my issue. Rather, it’s my mother’s, who has struggled with weight all her life. The condescending judgmentalism pisses me off. The professionals don’t have a solution. Neither do you. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/145 "2013-06-16T07:07:11Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Do you think someone who loses 100 pounds on, for instance, Weight Watchers, but then stops following the plan and gains it all back has somehow “forgotten” the things they learned? Or is it that they simply stopped following the plan? Does it mean that the plan is not valid, since the person who was on it stopped being on it? Because the people who have lost weight on the Weight Watchers plan that gain it back, and the people who lost weight on the weight watchers plan and not gained it back have precisely the same “knowledge” regarding the plan, and the eating plan itself worked for both of them. If I read The Art of Jeet Kune Do, can I call myself Sensei Ashtar and open a dojo? If I studied a website full of pick up tricks, can I then teach lonely guys how to get laid? If I walk into a gym and am greeted by someone is 50 pounds overweight and seems winded from having jogged over to me offering to help me put together a diet and exercise program to get the ripped, hard body I’ve always wanted, how much credence should I give him? Bottom line, if you can’t apply knowledge to yourself in a sustainable way, then you have, in my opinion, no business claiming expertise in that subject. > [@](#): > > You and Brazil seem to equate “valid knowledge of how to lose weight” with “knowing” some way of losing weight that somehow undoes whatever circumstances existed that led to the weight gain initially, that “cures” them permanently so that they no longer struggle, and that anything less means they don’t know anything. > > You further seem to operate from a very narrow understand of all the different factors at work in obesity, apparently believing that there is some “knowledge” that, if truly _valid_, will fix _all_ of those factors, as though obesity were like rickets, and the knowledge of what foods to eat will lead to a cure and theres nothing else to it. Where have I said anything that even remotely approaches any of this? All I have said here is that, based on your posts, I doubt your ability to speak authoritatively on this subject. You know nothing of my knowledge in this area, so I’ll thank you to stop trying to put words in my mouth. > [@](#): > > Do you believe that anorexics fail to really understand that they need to eat more in order to avoid dying, and that once they have that knowledge, they will be cured? What I understand of anorexia is that it is primarily a psychological condition which requires therapy and possibly medication under the guidance of a trained professional. I claim no knowledge in this area. Perhaps you have a book you’ve leafed through that you can recommend? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/146 "2013-06-16T07:38:27Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > If I read The Art of Jeet Kune Do, can I call myself Sensei Ashtar and open a dojo? If I studied a website full of pick up tricks, can I then teach lonely guys how to get laid? If I walk into a gym and am greeted by someone is 50 pounds overweight and seems winded from having jogged over to me offering to help me put together a diet and exercise program to get the ripped, hard body I’ve always wanted, how much credence should I give him? Oh my god this thread is stupid. Does anyone know what knowledge is? Your examples require more than secondhand knowledge to gain expertise. The subject of weight loss and nutrition doesn’t. To give an example another way, what if someone held 3 PHDs in nutrition, physiology, and sports medicine, but they decided that for them, personally, staying in good shape wasn’t worth the effort. Would you say they don’t know anything about diet and exercise? Stoid’s personal failings don’t credit or discredit any arguments or factual statements she makes. If someone who says that the key to weight loss is eating fewer calories and doing more exercise - would you say they have no fucking idea about how to lose weight because they were fat? Why the fuck am I subscribed to this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/147 "2013-06-16T07:45:08Z")
> [@PBear42](#): > > Can’t remember the last time I wandered into the Pit (was bored tonight). Have to say, beating up on overweight people because they generally have little success keeping off losses is a cheap shot. It’s well known. No credit for the insight. If the critics have a solution, there are a whole lot of afflicted people who would be interested. If not, you’re just kicking folks who are down. Shame on you. > > FWIW, this isn’t my issue. Rather, it’s my mother’s, who has struggled with weight all her life. The condescending judgmentalism pisses me off. The professionals don’t have a solution. Neither do you. I think you misunderstand. No-one is beating up on fat people generally, just on **Stoid** for claiming that she has that solution in the same breath as stating that she’s failed to lose weight and keep it off. There is, of course, a solution, but it’s hardly an easy one. Eat a healthy diet, today and everyday, and you will _slowly_ lose weight until you are the right size. Many, possibly most, people (including myself, before you think I’m only judging others) are unwilling or psychologically unable to do this. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/148 "2013-06-16T10:47:54Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > You can call anything anything, it doesn’t make it a factual reality. Just makes it what you believe. Sure, and that pretty much sums up the semantic games you are playing. You can call years of yo-yo dieting “success,” but that’s not a success anyone is interested in achieving. > [@](#): > > Go back and read the thread you linked to at the beginning. Sorry, I’m not going to comb through 20 pages of posts searching for an argument to support your position. Looks to me like you have no answer at all for my question. > [@](#): > > . Actually you are. Because you continue to conflate knowledge of how to lose weight with knowledge of how to stay slim, repeatedly holding up the failure the failure to stay slim as proof of a lack of knowledge about how to lose weight, which it isn’t. No, you are the one who is implicitly conflating the two. You are just engaging in more variations on the chestnut of “I know how to lose weight, I just have trouble sticking to a diet.” > [@](#): > > By way of a famous example, Oprah Winfrey lost 70 pounds and became downright slim. So she _clearly_ knew how to lose weight, and lose a lot. It depends what you mean by “lose weight.” When a fat person says that he wants to “lose weight,” he normally means that he wants to lose fat and keep it off. Agreed? > [@](#): > > Because there comes a time when you no longer wish to be smaller, and you need to adjust what you were doing , to a greater or lesser degree. And therein lies the challenge. For everyone. Agreed. And this is a challenge that (perhaps) you do not know how to overcome. It looks to me like the jury is still out. > [@](#): > > And the reality is that almost no one, statistically speaking, who has ever been significantly overweight for a significant period of time manages to lose the weight, become a healthy weight, and remain at that healthy weight for the remaining decades of their lives. I agree that it is unusual, but I think it’s more common than “almost no one.” I know a few people personally who lost significant amounts of fat and kept it off for years and years. I also believe that **crafter\_man** has done so. > [@](#): > > So yes I do have some ability to avoid regaining all the weight I’ve lost, Perhaps, but the yo-yoing is not encouraging. Do you mind following up in a year or so? ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/149 "2013-06-16T13:49:16Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > I think you misunderstand. No-one is beating up on fat people generally, just on **Stoid** for claiming that she has that solution in the same breath as stating that she’s failed to lose weight and keep it off. I basically agree. [Here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucwWYpMWkL4) is a refreshingly honest take on the situation from a politician of all people. **Interviewer** : Why do you think you’ve had a battle with your weight? **Chris Christie** : If I could figure it out, I’d fix it. **Interviewer** : You don’t know what it is? **Chris Christie** : I don’t. Contrast with **stoid** who basically insists that she does have it all figured out. > [@](#): > > Many, possibly most, people (including myself, before you think I’m only judging others) are unwilling or psychologically unable to do this. I do think that there are psychological techniques to make it easier to stick to a diet. I have been investigating this issue for some time now. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of misinformation out there which acts to camouflage the fundamental issues. And there is a huge market for misinformation, particularly if it promises solutions which are quick, easy, and allow the dieter to eat tasty foods ad libitum. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/150 "2013-06-16T13:55:13Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > If someone who says that the key to weight loss is eating fewer calories and doing more exercise - would you say they have no fucking idea about how to lose weight because they were fat? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that have no fucking idea, but I would say that they are pretty clueless, particularly if they acted as if they were some kind of expert. Admittedly, such a person is a step or two above the fad dieters who insist that the key to weight loss has nothing to do with eating fewer calories or exercising but instead you need to drink a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar after every meal. It’s the same as if somebody wandered into a thread on stock market investment and stated that the key to making money in the stock market is “buy low sell high.” ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/151 "2013-06-16T14:03:22Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I do think that there are psychological techniques to make it easier to stick to a diet. I have been investigating this issue for some time now. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of misinformation out there which acts to camouflage the fundamental issues. And there is a huge market for misinformation, particularly if it promises solutions which are quick, easy, and allow the dieter to eat tasty foods ad libitum. In my case, I attempted to deal with alcoholism, mental illness, and obesity. Trying to fix all of them at once failed rather dismally, and I decided that obesity was, by a significant margin, the least urgent to fix of the three. There’s a limit to how many lifestyle changes it’s sensible to make at one time. That’s the point, though - just like with alcoholism or mental illness, the solution to obesity is permanent lifestyle change. Anything less will _at best_ be unsuccessful, and at worst destructive both physically and psychologically. Losing weight is as simple, and as difficult, as stopping drinking, in my opinion, and should be considered as the same sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/152 "2013-06-16T14:04:06Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > . Do you think someone who loses 100 pounds on, for instance, Weight Watchers, but then stops following the plan and gains it all back has somehow “forgotten” the things they learned? Or is it that they simply stopped following the plan? I would say it’s “neither.” Most likely the person never knew how to stick to a diet in the first place. At a minimum, they seem to be missing something important. > [@](#): > > Does it mean that the plan is not valid, since the person who was on it stopped being on it? It depends what you mean by the word “valid.” It does appear that Weight Watchers, standing alone, is ineffective. > [@](#): > > You further seem to operate from a very narrow understand of all the different factors at work in obesity, apparently believing that there is some “knowledge” that, if truly _valid_, will fix _all_ of those factors, as though obesity were like rickets, and the knowledge of what foods to eat will lead to a cure and theres nothing else to it. I would say it’s a lot more than just knowing what food to eat and not to eat. (Although this plays a role.) It’s also knowing how to deal with your own mind. And putting the same into practice. It’s even remotely possible that nobody knows how to lose weight and keep it off because it’s psychologically impossible for most people. But I don’t think so, since a decent number of people actually succeed. (I am using the word “succeed” here in the normal sense, i.e. I mean losing a significant amount of fat weight and keeping it off indefinitely.) ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/153 "2013-06-16T14:26:40Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Losing weight is as simple, and as difficult, as stopping drinking, in my opinion, and should be considered as the same sort of thing. Yes I agree to a large extent. I have researched these issues informally for quite a while now and I am just about convinced that there is a similar psychological process in play as between an alcoholic who is addicted to alcohol and a fat person who cannot resist the urge to pig out. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/154 "2013-06-16T14:53:31Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > If I read The Art of Jeet Kune Do, can I call myself Sensei Ashtar and open a dojo? Well you can, but if you did, you would deserve to get mocked a little bit. I think it’s a pretty good analogy – the knowledge required to successfully lose weight is evidently more than just something you need to read in a book. Even if it’s correct, it must be put into practice. To be an expert martial artist, you must (1) learn the correct knowledge; and (2) practice it for quite a while. Why is that? Well apparently the knowledge must be applied at a subconscious level to be useful. If you are punching or kicking at an enemy, he is moving to quickly for you to intellectualize each step of your response. So too with dieting, I suspect, except that the battle is taking place inside your brain. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/155 "2013-06-16T16:30:17Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > To give an example another way, what if someone held 3 PHDs in nutrition, physiology, and sports medicine, but they decided that for them, personally, staying in good shape wasn’t worth the effort. Would you say they don’t know anything about diet and exercise? Show me someone who has put the effort into getting doctorates in all three of those disciplines and has decided to let themselves get overweight and not do anything about it despite having superior knowledge of what it’s doing to their body and what they can do about it, and I’ll eat my hat. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/156 "2013-06-17T01:25:22Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Oh my god this thread is stupid. Does anyone know what knowledge is? Your examples require more than secondhand knowledge to gain expertise. The subject of weight loss and nutrition doesn’t. > > To give an example another way, what if someone held 3 PHDs in nutrition, physiology, and sports medicine, but they decided that for them, personally, staying in good shape wasn’t worth the effort. Would you say they don’t know anything about diet and exercise? > > Stoid’s personal failings don’t credit or discredit any arguments or factual statements she makes. If someone who says that the key to weight loss is eating fewer calories and doing more exercise - would you say they have no fucking idea about how to lose weight because they were fat? Bingo. Heres Only one extremely important reason that anyone’s attempts at remaining slim after being fat are likely to be hugely difficult and probably fail, Having absolutely _ **zero** _ to do with how much they “know” about weight loss: [Why dieting makes you FAT: Research shows trying to lose weight alters your brain and hormones so you’re doomed to pile it on again](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2134162/Research-shows-trying-lose-weight-alters-brain-hormones-youre-doomed-pile-again.html) > [@](#): > > But scientific evidence increasingly points to a far deeper problem that confronts dieters: cutting out calories changes your metabolism and brain, so your body hoards fat and your mind magnifies food cravings into an obsession. > > Slimmers have often feared this was somehow true, but now science confirms this cruel fact of nature. New research shows dieting raises levels of hormones that stimulate appetite — and lowers levels of hormones that suppress it. > > Meanwhile, brain scans reveal that weight loss makes it harder for us to exercise self-control and resist tempting food. Worse still, the more people diet, the stronger these effects can become, leaving some almost doomed to being overweight as a result of their attempts to become slim. > And as research lays bare the dangers of yo-yoing weight, some experts argue it would be better not to diet at all. > … > > The human frame contains around ten times more fat-storing cells in relation to its body weight than most animals (polar bears, which have to endure long stretches when prey is unavailable, are similarly fat-rich). > > Our calorie-hoarding frames have **strong mechanisms to stop weight loss, but weak systems for preventing weight gain.** If you manage to lose ten per cent of your weight, your body thinks there’s an emergency. So it burns less fuel by slowing your metabolism. > The body learns to function on fewer calories, resetting your metabolism. The problem is if you then stop dieting and start eating more again, those extra calories are stored as fat. > This effect kicks in after around eight weeks of dieting — _ **and can last for years** _. Studies by Columbia University show this metabolic slowdown can mean that just to maintain a stable weight, people must eat around 400 fewer calories a day post-diet than before dieting. The above not only demonstrates why and how a person could remain fat or get fat again even know they know plenty about losing weight, It also shows why low carb can be so much better than cutting calories: it doesn’t starve the body, triggering the reactions that calorie cutting does. It also demonstrates why Athabasca Is a poor model of managing obesity, and also never genuinely became obese him/herself: 15 years low carbing to manage those 30 pounds versus starving the body of calories, which would have likely resulted innthose 30 pounds turning into 60 or 90 over 15 years. So people who go on and on about it eat less/exercise more are simply demonstrating their ignorance about obesity and weight loss. If you have a reason to want to really understand obesity and weight loss, stop paying any attention to diet books, and skinny people teaching you how to exercise and live on salad. Instead seek out science. Research. Data. Real information vs. regurgitated “pop info”. Drop your preconceived notions and your prejudices and open your mind. Let your brain actually work. Stop buying into the idea that in spite of the fact that you can see his naked penis, the Emperor is fully clothed, just because everyone agrees. He’s not. And what we supposedly “know” about what is “obvious” about weight loss is horseshit. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/157 "2013-06-17T02:33:44Z")
By the way, here’s what I said in the other thread, in the very first post: > [@](#): > > So don’t mistake me: I’m not saying “I’m special”, I have a glandular problem or anything else. Quite the reverse. I’m saying I don’t. I’m saying what I’ve always said, what I knew was true, and what I now know for sure is true: being obese, and dieting, in and of itself lowers the metabolism, making it harder and harder and harder to lose weight and keep it off, and that decades into the cycle the degree of control and management required to attain anything close to a healthy weight and maintain it is a much, much, much higher bar than simply cutting out the face stuffing - exponentially more difficult for someone like me than someone like, say, a man or women who was a healthy weight throughout their childhood and young adulthood, and just found the weight creeping up in middle age until they woke up one day and needed to lose 50 pounds. If that kind of person pays attention and applies themselves. the degree of deprivation and control is going to be much less severe and much more attainable. > > Which is all to say this: weight loss and weight maintenance is NOT the same for all people, and in fact, the fatter someone is, the longer they’ve been fat, the less likely it is that what it takes for them to lose weight and keep it off looks anything remotely like what it is for you or people you know who have battled occasional pudge, babyweight, or middle age spread. So until you really have walked a few hundred miles in their shoes, you are not in any position to know or judge what their failure really is: a failure to control gross overindulgence, or a failure to consistently restrict consumption to a bare subsistence level, or something in between. > But during the same period that we’ve all gotten so much fatter something else has also happened: our cultural standards for what constitutes beauty and a healthy weight have not only become incredibly stringent, they are imposed earlier and earlier in life. > > So, where I was pretty unusual among my peers 30-40 years ago, little mes are being created all the time now: instead of emotional compulsive eating,it’s normal to eat the Big Gulp and your half-pound muffin… and unless you can proudly walk down mainstreet in a string bikini, your washboard abs rippling in the light, you’re fat, so when you aren’t stuffing yourself with Big Macs, you need to starve yourself. > > And the ping-ponging is doing to others what it did to me: making people MUCH fatter than they would have been otherwise, because every diet that starves them lowers the metabolism, so when they go back to “normal” eating they are more efficient than ever at storing every calorie, making them fatter, more miserable, more likely to hate themselves and try to starve…which is too hard and collapses into binging, and on and on… until you have an insanely high number of people who are 200, 300, 400 pounds by the time they are 40 who, in order to lose weight, HAVE to nearly starve and continue to semi-starve NOT to be so fat. All of which I came to by observing my own experience. Then science came along and took a closer look and has said, yep, Stoid, looks like you’re right. Then later in the thread the Taubes book, which explains the body’s systems in ways that line up perfectly with this observation and research, became the topic, finally clarifying, within the context of all the rest of these observable phenomena, how it has come to be that so many Americans particularly have managed to get so huge. The fact that yes, subtracting sufficient calories will cause _anyone_ to lose weight is addressed in my OP; the problem is people extrapolating from that simple truth the idea that healthy long term management of weight is achieved by lifelong calorie restriction. That’s a big, bad, wrong leap that isn’t merely ineffective, it’s actively damaging, turning a small problem into an issue that destroys people’s lives physically and emotionally. Honestly, the belief that obesity and weight loss/weight maintenance are “simply” a matter of “Calories in/Calories out”, is not merely _not_ “obvious”, it actually defies rational thought. This is particularly so when considering the obesity, morbid obesity, and super obesity which have exploded in the past 30 years. So yeah, I think…wait, _ **I know for sure** _ that I have a great deal of knowledge and a very good understanding of the factors involved in obesity and the things which affect it, either positively or negatively. I know that the driving reason I acquired that information is because of my personal stake in it. The fact that I did not long ago succeed in getting and staying slim (as, say, Crafter Man did) has _ **kept** _ me very interested in the subject, leading me continue to always take new information, always expanding and increasing my knowledge and understanding of it. (I am by nature a person who seeks to increase and expand my knowledge of everything that interests me, and nearly everything does interest me, although of course not equally.) On the other hand if I were as the sort of person who had the ability to adopt a sort of steely resolve to deny myself to whatever degree necessary to become thin, did it, then continued to impose upon myself whatever degree of self-control and deprivation proved necessary to remain slim, (as it appears Crafter Man did) then I would certainly _ **be** _ slim, but that would in no way be good evidence that my knowledge and information about the subject was particularly comprehensive or reliable, because I almost certainly wouldn’t have gone on to continue to acquire the kind of information about the subject that I did as a result of continuing to struggle with it. After all, having that kind of self-control is terrific and effective, if you have it, but it’s not knowledge. It’s not something you can really teach other people to have. (Far from it , actually… science is learning more all the time about the nature of self-control, and rather than being like a muscle that use will strengthen, it’s more like a fixed and limited resource that if tapped, will have less and less for use later.) In other words, it has actually been my repeated _ **failure** _ to remain slim that has increased and expanded my knowledge of the subject. To what degree I am ever able to apply that knowledge remains to be seen. But it is no indicator of what I know, **EXCEPT** to the extent that I acquire knowledge about how to make it **easier** …and I _have_ got the knowledge, and I have _applied_ that knowledge, and this _has_ led to my being able to be less obese at 55 than I was at 42, even if I am not actually slim. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/158 "2013-06-17T06:14:20Z")
One way to split the difference might be to say both have inherent biasses. As in when we succeed at something we can tend to overemphasise personal qualities at achieving it, when we fail we can tend to over emphasise external factors for the failure. Sometimes its the reverse. Which is why clinical knowlege can guard against either tendency, although not entirely. Cancer survival and weight loss are two interesting examples in this regard. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/159 "2013-06-17T07:02:44Z")
> [@Otara](#): > > One way to split the difference might be to say both have inherent biasses. > > As in when we succeed at something we can tend to overemphasise personal qualities at achieving it, when we fail we can tend to over emphasise external factors for the failure. Sometimes its the reverse. Which is why clinical knowlege can guard against either tendency, although not entirely. > > Cancer survival and weight loss are two interesting examples in this regard. > > Otara I agree. In my.own case I have always admitted that I started using food like a drug when I was a kid, and remained a compulsive, disordered eater with an unhealthy relationship with food for decades. But at the same time that became less true, I not only found myself fatter than ever before, the general degree of fatness innthe rest of the population exploded. And it never made the slightest sense to me that a huge percentage of the population would suddenly become compulsive eaters for anything other than biological reasons. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100/160 "2013-06-17T08:42:40Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > The above not only demonstrates why and how a person could remain fat or get fat again even know they know plenty about losing weight, Assuming your claim is correct (and I am somewhat skeptical), this is yet another variation on “I know what to do, I just have a hard time sticking to it.” Let’s assume for the sake of argument that generally speaking, diets fail beause of hormonal changes which result from dieting. In that case, your problem is perhaps that you do not know how to consistently and sustainably deal with these hormonal changes. > [@](#): > > It also shows why low carb can be so much better than cutting calories: it doesn’t starve the body, triggering the reactions that calorie cutting does. That’s just speculation. Speculation which is unsupported by one important piece of evidence – the National Weight Control Registry, which tracks thousands of people who have kept at least 30 pounds off for at least a year. Despite the popularity of low carb dieting, very few of these people use a low carb approach (apparently). > [@](#): > > If you have a reason to want to really understand obesity and weight loss, stop paying any attention to diet books, and skinny people teaching you how to exercise and live on salad. Instead seek out science. Research. Data. Real information vs. regurgitated “pop info”. Drop your preconceived notions and your prejudices and open your mind. Let your brain actually work. Stop buying into the idea that in spite of the fact that you can see his naked penis, the Emperor is fully clothed, just because everyone agrees. He’s not. And what we supposedly “know” about what is “obvious” about weight loss is horseshit. And one very useful – scientific – thing to do is to look at people who have succeeded in the weight loss game and see what they have in common. Agreed? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stoid-are-you-still-confident-that-you-know-a-lot-about-diet-and-obesity/650100.md?page=9)