(Bolding mine)
Maybe it’s just me, but the way I read this statement is that fat is the normal default condition for the human body. :eek: There is no way I can accept this statement without a ton and 1/2 of cites. I mean just look at photos from the civil war, or the turn of the century. Most people were what is now considered skinny. Very few fat people.
So losing weight is getting back to what the human body should be, not an artificially low weight.
It depends on the lifestyle and what food is available. The Pima indians and their mexican cousins is an example of people with similiar genetics having different obesity levels due to lifestyle and diet. Fat is a result of genetics, lifestyle and diet. With poor lifestyle and diet 70%+ of people will be fat. Losing weight is only getting back to what the body should be if the normal bodies environment is one with scarce, low fat foods and alot of exercise. While this is a normal environment, its not the modern environment.
However, there are easily a ton and a half of cites on setpoint theory. There are studies on overfeeding and how people have to eat excessively to go above their weight, and there are studies saying most people regain weight they lose via dieting. Obviously there is an internal motivation to maintain a certain weight, and there are alot of studies on this subject.
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/food2/UID08E/uid08e05.htm
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-092.html
Although there are many well-accepted methods to reduce initial body weight
by 7-10%, long-term maintenance of that lost weight is more problematic. On
average, among treatment-seeking populations, approximately 1/3 of lost
weight is regained by one year; by 5 years most or all previously lost weight
is regained.
Exactly!
I can honestly say that I have never seen such an outrageous display of denial as I have seen in this thread. I also cannot figure out what some of you think is the correct way to lose weight. I keep hearing that there is no hope unless medical science advances enough to cure the problem for us without any additional effort on our part.
I have news for you, even if medical science finds a way to cause you to lose weight through a “magic pill”, your eating habits are still going to cause health problems and your aversion to excercise is going to make the artifically emaciated you look terrible without any muscle tone.
Keep denying and keep wishing. You aren’t hurting anyone but yourself and those that depend on you.
Since we’re also all about fighting ignorance here, I have to tell you that people who can take weight off and keep it off for a period of three years are EXTREMELY rare. Now why is that? Most Americans who are overweight also hold down jobs and raise families. They do a lot of complex and difficult things every day, but they can’t lose weight. Why? Because no method has been discovered as yet that works. The fact that “eat less, eat better, exercise more” works for only a very tiny minority is undeniable. A cure that only works for a fraction of 1 percent … isn’t much of a cure.
And people who keep harping on such cures may have good intentions, but …
quack quack quack
Not all of us want to live off of steamed rice and try to ignore and battle our own internal hormones for the rest of our lives. That is not a way to live. I was reading a book a week ago (forget the name, something about children and obesity) where individuals were interviewed to see how much time they spent directly and indirectly thinking about food. Those who weren’t dieting spent about 10-15% of their time, and those who were severe dieters spent 90%+ of their time thinking about it. I’m not saying its impossible to lose weight and keep it of, its just not worth it right now. I don’t want to devote my life to this. You seem to think I am asking for a magic pill so I can eat ho-hos until I vomit and still have a 6 pack. I would like that but I would settle for a drug that improves maintenance success rates by 50%. Since maintenance can have a 90%+ failure rate a 50% improvement is major.
As science progresses more and more info on how to lose weight and keep it off will be found. A magic pill isn’t even necessary, just a good deal of quality info which all make a dent like what I listed earlier. If you combine 3-4 daily servings of dairy with orlistat, a regular exercise regimin and go back on a diet 1-2 days a week you can probably slow weight regain to 1/4 a lb a week. That is maintainable for life. Trying to ignore your bodies signals is not maintainable except for a small % of the population. Assume a person gains fat back at 2 lbs a week. That is 7000 calories in excess a week. Trying to eat according to a calorie chart instead of your hunger signals for the rest of your life is hard to do, and most people who do that will fail and end up fat again. Imagine spending your life having sex according to a chart instead of when you are in the mood, how many people could do that for life? Or sleeping according to a chart isntead of when your internal biochemistry says to do it. However, if you cut calories 1000 below maintenance one day a week you are now only eating 5000 a week above maintenance. If you take orlistat at 120mg 3x a day you may now only be eating 3800 above maintenance. if you do moderate exercise 4x a week that number would go down to maybe 2400. If you add dairy into your diet the numbers go down even more. With educated minor changes you can slow a 2lb a week weight regain down to 1/3 lb a week or less. And that lifestyle is maintainable. Although I like most people would love a diet pill that did all the work, advice or a pill that made weight maintenance possible w/o it being one of the central focuses of our lives or something that we have to battle our own biochemistry for life over would be a good enough solution.
And your statement about having no muscle tone is way off. My LBM is around 193 lbs, and I do cardio exercise regularly. Besides i’ve lost 50 lbs and kept it off for over a year now. I’ve lost the same amount of weight as crafter_man. However I don’t want to live like him and there is nothing wrong with that.
My statement wasn’t way off because I was speaking about overweight people in general. You have muscle tone because you excercise and that is the point. Many overweight people don’t excercise at all.
The fact that you have weighed the pro’s and con’s of losing weight and keeping it off is completely rational. If it is not worth it to you then great. Many overweight people haven’t taken a good look at their own logic processes however, and that is why the fad diet has been booming for years.
This struck a nerve with me. Let’s assume no one wants to be obese. In fact, let’s assume (or even consider it a fact, since it appeared in last week’s newspaper) that the majority of people who completed a poll said they’d rather marry a drug dealer than an obese person. Even children will say they’d rather be stupid, blind, or deaf than be overweight. So we can all agree that no one WANTS to be overweight. In fact, almost everyone in our culture desperately wants NOT to be overweight.
Thus, we can assume a couple of things.
The obese person has TRIED and “white-knuckled” every single thing they could possibly try to help. It’s not their unwillingness to go through difficulty…trust me. Go ask an overweight person about the last nine diets they were on. Then ask them what they spent on those diets in dollars, in time, in commitment, in effort. I mean, really LISTEN to what they have to say, as they start crying about starving on Jenny Craig only to lose a pound a week. And don’t forget the humiliation of going into the gym…even if you ENJOY physical activity, people can be very cruel so one has to overcome this issue if you’re even just going to walk down the street for exercise.
I think we can also assume that when the overweight person fails to lose or keep off weight, it’s because their personal drive – appetites, needs, psychological attachments – whatever you want to call it – overwhelms their desire to be of normal size.
Did you get that? Every overweight person you meet has tried dozens of plans, hundreds of things, including medications (phentermine, meridia, xenical, all prescriptions) because they were desperate to feel comfortable in their bodies and to feel “normal.”
Everyone IS responsible for the care and feeding of their own body. But for some reason there are those of us who:
My final solution to this tangle of problems was weight loss surgery. I had a gastric bypass. I was SO desperate to be a “normal sized” person that I had my entire intesinal system re-vamped.
I was never lazy. I LOVE physical activity of many types…love riding my bike, like team sports and always took part in them when it was possible. I like paddling (kayak or canoe), hiking, and for some odd reason, I love lifting weights. I like taking aerobics classes because I enjoy the sort of “dance” aspect of it. I’m not making this up, I honestly am a person who ENJOYS getting exercise. And I’d certainly rather be at the gym than sitting at my desk at work…no matter what my weight is.
It makes sense that the formula for weight loss should be simply calories in vs. calories out. Unfortunately, WHO YOU ARE and what your relationship with food, with exercise, with your self all have an effect on that equation.
I lost 85 pounds all by myself…by going to the gym two times a day and taking phentermine and eating very little. But even while I was doing it I knew I couldn’t keep up 2 trips to the gym a day for the rest of my life. I knew I couldn’t maintain my weight on the 600-800 calories a day I was eating.
So I wept and struggled to fight it as every bit of that weight came back on. And I know I don’t need to go into how difficult it is to start over THEN…with the horror of your accomplishments being wiped out. I finally determined that there was no way I could maintain the lifestyle I needed to lose and keep off weight for the rest of my life. Call it wimpy, call it giving up…but I knew. I knew myself and my own body and knew that there was NO way I could continue the constant struggle, the continuous disgust with myself when I failed.
So I had surgery. Best decision I ever made. Not everyone has that option though. And they shouldn’t have to. If you’re comfortable (I wasn’t, since I could hardly walk carrying all that extra weight around) if you’re happy with yourself, eat well, get some physical activity every day, and live your life. Learn to like yourself the way you are.
Oh, and according to my insurance company’s statistics (www.bluecaresma.com) less than 1% of obese people are ever able to lose weight and keep it off with diet and exercise. It that equation were so simple, don’t you think more than 1% of those who used it would see success?
Sorry for the long personal diatribe, but this is a topic close to my heart and which I’ve done TONS of research on.
L
Considering that many people have to do a LOT of math and figuring regarding what their calorie deficit needs to be based on their personal BMR, it actually is NOT “simple” either.
It takes time, trickery and much mathematical doings for a lot of people. Charts, graphs, bodyfat percentage numbers. Knowing what types of exercise, figuring when and how to escalate exercise and what type when you do escalate it.
Knowing when to change your routine when one stalls in a “plateau” as nearly all those attempting to lose fat do, so as to continue the fat loss.
All of this entails a great deal of math, figuring of calories and types of food, metabolic rates for the individual and so on.
Doing all of that is in no way “simple” or easy. If it were, as we’ve said in each one of these ridiculous “fat threads” then no one would be overweight, or underweight.
Again, there are six billion people in the world, it’s stupidly arrogant and simplistic to think that a little mantra is the be all and end all answer for each and every overweight, or underweight for that matter, (as they have JUST as much work to do to gain muscle, it’s no more simple for them, it’s CERTAINLY not “eat more exercise less”) person so that they can get healthy.
It does not require any math that I would have to take my shoes off to complete for me to lose weight. YMMV of course.
I don’t count calories, I count carbs loosely. I know approx each serving of what I eat contains in the way of carbs. As long as I keep that number below about 45 I continue to lose weight. If I keep that number below about 20 per day I lose more weight.
As far as exercise goes, I wear a heart rate monitor that knows my age, weight, and heart rate. It calculates my total calorie expenditure during one exercise cycle, and cumulative since reset. For example last week, I burned 6,037 calories during exercise sessions in the gym at the hotel. On Sunday my bike ride was 1,857 calories. This afternoon I will take out my mountain bike and probably burn about 1,500 calories. If I burn 500 calories per day in exercise I lose weight. If I burn a 1,000 I lose more.
No higher math necessary.
Even if you do count calories it still falls under the simple but maybe not easy rule.
Oh yeah I am now down 62 lbs since I started in January. 
Yeah me!
I’d like to add an addendum to my posts.
Although it IS insanely difficult to lose weight and keep it off, it is relatively easy to get fit and stay that way. Regular exercise works, and works for millions of people. The health benefits from being fit are enormous. And any regular exercise, even just walking for 20-30 minutes a day for 3-4 days a week, will help.
So if you want to get healthy, focus on exercising and don’t sweat your body weight so much. Your weight WILL tend to go down, though regular exercise alone generally won’t achieve long-term weight reduction. I heard about some recent scientific studies that said it’s general fitness rather than body mass that’s most important for staying that way.
Someone who has apparently read this thread posted an anonymous question in my journal. Since there is no indication that the person has been back and since it took a bit of time to frame my reply, I decided to post here to indicate that I have, in fact, completed my reply here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/zyada/402228.html
And since I had to scan through some of the replies on this page (I stopped keeping up with it) I have to add a couple of things:
I can’t imagine why people are confusing easy with simple - just because it’s one of the primary synonyms.
And it would probably be a lot simpler and easier to weigh less if we lived like someone in 1900 (as an example).
Of course, that would mean eating almost no pre-prepared foods - no frozen meals, no potato chips out of the vending machine, no restaurant meals unless you are very, very, very rich - nearly everything would have to be made at home, even including bread.
And it would be even better if we had to pay 1900 prices (adjusted by comparing current minimum wage to a common workers wages back then),
a 1lb loaf of bread would cost over $5
sirloin would be about $16 a lb.
so would coffee
and a dozen eggs would cost around $20!
numbers from here )
An 8-oz coke would probably cost around $5
People weren’t overweight back then because they couldn’t afford to spend more than absolutely necessary to feed themselves. Those who could afford it were overweight.
OK, one more thing. I notice that people are confusing losing weight with not being overweight. Those are two different things. If a person is at a good weight, that person does not have to fight nature to maintain that weight. But if a person is overweight, the person does have to fight nature.