Article questioning the "lose weight for health" doctrine.

[busymama7]

Just had to say how strongly I agree with you!

 

First of all, people make the mistake of assuming that you can change one variable while keeping the other constant, but you generally can't. If you lower your caloric intake, your body reduces the number of calories it burns. If you increase the amount of calories you burn, your appetite increases in response. So no, it is definitely NOT as simple as calories in versus calories out.

 

The other aspect which gets ignored/denied by CICO is that not all calories are created equal. Your body does not do the same thing with a calorie of protein as what it does with a calorie of fat, or a calorie of carbohydrate. About 70-90% of the protein you eat, if memory serves, gets used for "building" not for fuel. Carbohydrate is a quick burning fuel that must be used almost immediately, or it gets stored, mostly as fat. Fat is a slow-burning fuel. So a calorie is not a calorie.

 

I like what Tom Naugton said about this in Fat Head: when skinny people and fat people sit down to a meal, they do the same thing. They eat until they're full.

 

I also heard once that there's a simpler and more truthful equation than CICO:

 

Hunger = calories in

 

We don't get fat by forcing ourselves to eat more food than we need or want. We get fat when our appetite (sensations of hunger versus sensations of satiety) malfunctions, and/or when we have metabolic problems.

Do you not think at least some fat people got there from too much desserts/sweets? I definetly think I have excess hunger and issues feeling full but I can't help but think that i have brought this on myself by having a sweet tooth. I also know it not that skinny people don't eat sweets. But I do wonder if *meals* would have caused me to gain in the absence of desserts. I haven't read the book you mention though. I might be missing something.

[Greta]

Do you not think at least some fat people got there from too much desserts/sweets? I definetly think I have excess hunger and issues feeling full but I can't help but think that i have brought this on myself by having a sweet tooth. I also know it not that skinny people don't eat sweets. But I do wonder if *meals* would have caused me to gain in the absence of desserts. I haven't read the book you mention though. I might be missing something.

Oh, I definitely think sugar is fattening! Under my "not all calories are created equal" argument, I would say that sugar, as an extremely quick-burning fuel, often ends up being stored as fat. Sugar makes your body release insulin, insulin turns on fat storage. Absolutely!

 

Also, as you mentioned, sugar also relates to that whole malfunctioning appetite thing. There's only so much steak that I can eat. My body knows when it's had enough. But I could eat my weight in brownies and cheesecakes! Sweet foods actually make me hungrier, rather than making me feel satisfied. And foods that don't taste sweet but quickly become sugar in the blood stream (potatoes, bread, pasta, rice, chips, crackers, etc.) have the same effect on me.

 

Fat Head is a documentary response to Super Size Me. It's pretty amusing if you like that sort of thing. It used to be available on Netflix but I'm not sure that's still true. It's worth watching!

[Jean in Newcastle]

Do you not think at least some fat people got there from too much desserts/sweets? I definetly think I have excess hunger and issues feeling full but I can't help but think that i have brought this on myself by having a sweet tooth. I also know it not that skinny people don't eat sweets. But I do wonder if *meals* would have caused me to gain in the absence of desserts. I haven't read the book you mention though. I might be missing something.

If that were the case for me, it would be so much easier.  It is the case for some people.  Many people are advised to stop drinking sodas (which have a lot of sugar) and do so and drop the weight.  I joke that I wish I drank soda so that I could give it up!  Many people are advised to stop eating sugar and do so and drop the weight.  Hasn't worked for me though I didn't eat that much sugar to begin with (and yes, I'm aware of hidden sugars).  Many people are advised to adjust portion sizes, do so and drop the weight.  My portions aren't off.  And yes, I have a kitchen scale and use it.  etc. etc.  Those aren't bad tips.  Sparkpeople.com is built around advice like that.  I give out that advice!  Maybe if I'd lived according to that way back when I was in my twenties and this whole locomotive of weight gain hadn't started then it would have been a simple fix.  It seems to me that most people who can lose with the simple fixes are the ones with twenty pounds or so to lose.  It seems like those with a lot more weight to lose have more difficult scenarios with more complex reasons behind the weight gain - some medical, some mental and some both (like eating disorders).  Add to that some of the real problems in our food supply (preservatives, pesticides, etc.) we get people who think they are eating what Grandma did but really are eating quite different foods.  

[Laurie4b]

Do you not think at least some fat people got there from too much desserts/sweets? I definetly think I have excess hunger and issues feeling full but I can't help but think that i have brought this on myself by having a sweet tooth. I also know it not that skinny people don't eat sweets. But I do wonder if *meals* would have caused me to gain in the absence of desserts. I haven't read the book you mention though. I might be missing something.

 

Oh yeah. BTDT. That "second dinner" (ie 2 helpings of everything)  is what got me! Sweets were in the mix, but I don't think they had the effect of double-dinnering. :)

[SKL]

Yes, we all eat when we are hungry, but we can choose foods that are less problematic and still satisfy our needs.

 

I have times when I eat well and times when I basically abuse myself with food I know is going to frustrate my health goals.  It depends on how I feel, but also how seriously I'm taking my health this week.  And it does make a difference in my weight and overall health.  But I have pretty good health to begin with, so my body acts like it's supposed to in response to my choices.

[PeachyDoodle]

Just had to say how strongly I agree with you!

 

First of all, people make the mistake of assuming that you can change one variable while keeping the other constant, but you generally can't. If you lower your caloric intake, your body reduces the number of calories it burns. If you increase the amount of calories you burn, your appetite increases in response. So no, it is definitely NOT as simple as calories in versus calories out.

 

The other aspect which gets ignored/denied by CICO is that not all calories are created equal. Your body does not do the same thing with a calorie of protein as what it does with a calorie of fat, or a calorie of carbohydrate. About 70-90% of the protein you eat, if memory serves, gets used for "building" not for fuel. Carbohydrate is a quick burning fuel that must be used almost immediately, or it gets stored, mostly as fat. Fat is a slow-burning fuel. So a calorie is not a calorie.

 

I like what Tom Naugton said about this in Fat Head: when skinny people and fat people sit down to a meal, they do the same thing. They eat until they're full.

 

I also heard once that there's a simpler and more truthful equation than CICO:

 

Hunger = calories in

 

We don't get fat by forcing ourselves to eat more food than we need or want. We get fat when our appetite (sensations of hunger versus sensations of satiety) malfunctions, and/or when we have metabolic problems.

 

I have said for years that I don't feel fullness/satisfaction like other people seem to do. Growing up, my grandma used to tell me I couldn't have a snack because it would "spoil your dinner." I literally didn't know what that meant. How could it spoil my dinner? When it was time to eat dinner, I'd just eat it, regardless of whether I'd had a snack or not. Call it a metabolism issue, call it gluttony, call it whatever you want -- that's how it is.

 

I cried (yes, literally, cried) about this for a very long time. A VERY long time. I just wanted to be "normal." I wanted to be able to eat pizza when I felt like it and not be overweight, like my friends did (this was in high school/college; fewer of my friends can get away with that now, lol!).

 

But the conclusion I came to is this: Everybody has her battles to fight. Unfortunately, I wear mine on my body, where the whole world can see them at a glance. It may not be patently obvious that someone struggles with anxiety, or alcohol, or miscarriages. All of those things are hard and cause suffering in their own ways, but they are not necessarily immediately obvious to strangers, potentially making them an object of scorn. Fair? No. But it is what it is.

 

I'll probably have to spend the rest of my life fighting this. I'll have to eat less to maintain a healthy (notice I didn't say "skinny," because as we've established, skinny doesn't equal healthy) weight/lifestyle. I'll have to exercise harder. Some days I'll do that well, and other days I'll fail. If I fail more often than I succeed, it will show, and others will notice it. But I can't control what other people think or do. I can fight my battle to the best of MY ability, whatever that looks like. And so I will.

 

(Sorry, that wasn't all directed at you. Your post was just sort of a jumping-off point.)

 

 

[Murphy101]

One of the reasons I like Whole30 is bc when I am hungry, I can eat. So many of the so called diets make you deprive yourself and feeling genuine hunger is going to not work for long. It goes against every instinct. It's hard enough to fight cravings, social expectations, temptation and bad habits without adding in fighting basic instincts too.

[Tsuga]

The article questions the science and conclusions made to (continually) assert this.

 

 

I would agree that the science of being obese, not 100+ lbs, but 50-80 lbs over, is not conclusive.

 

About 10 lbs under and 100 lbs over there are extremely well-documented effects on health.

 

 

In analyses not adjusted for diabetes or hypertension, only severe obesity was associated with mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.00–1.59). After adjusting for diabetes and hypertension, severe obesity was no longer associated with mortality, and milder obesity (BMI 30-<35) was associated with decreased mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.68–0.97). There was a significant interaction between diabetes (but not hypertension) and BMI (F [4, 235] = 2.71; P = .03), such that the mortality risk of diabetes was lower among mildly and severely obese persons than among those in lower BMI categories.

 

 

http://www.jabfm.org/content/25/4/422.full

 

 

Re: Gluttony: come on. Greed and self-indulgence is our national disease. We all do it, whether it be entertainment, shoes, clothes, whatever. Everybody has something. Maybe the Amish don't? Books. I remember once a relative was admonished for buying too many of a certain kind of doll for her kids--it was pretty gross, the number of dollies these kids had, from my perspective (it was not I doing the admonishing). They aren't fat. They had their things. Just cause we can see it doesn't make it worse. Coffee? Luxury items? Private lessons? Who among us can really throw the first stone? And if it's not gluttony, surely it's something.

[Greta]

(Sorry, that wasn't all directed at you. Your post was just sort of a jumping-off point.)

 

Oh, I get it. And I really appreciate the conversation.

 

My best friend when I was growing up was chubby, plump, I don't know what word to use but I don't mean it in a negative way. It's just a fact. And I was skinny (and I don't mean that in a positive way either, because skinny wasn't really what I wanted! But it is what I had at that time.). When we were in high school, we went to D.C. together for a week, so that was the first time I spent 24 hours a day with her, for an entire week. And you know what I learned? I ate a LOT more food than she did! I mean a lot. I wasn't active either, much less athletic. We were both pretty sedentary. So that was the first time that I started to realize that there was more to this skinny vs. fat thing than simple calories. It seemed to me that it had a lot more to do with pure dumb luck than it did with calories. Body weight is really complicated, and I make no claim to have the answers. But I don't like it when people try to boil it down to oversimplified equations, or *most especially* to moral, character, or will-power issues.

[AmandaVT]

That's not really a very useful thing to look at though.  I don't think anyone argues that people who eat massive amounts of calories, or no calories, will not have physical effects follow. 

 

What is useful I think is to look at people who were overweight, but lost it and have kept it off.  Research done on that suggests that people who accomplish that don't go on a diet to lose and then maintain that by eating what most people would consider a normal amount.  Rather, they have to carry on eating a diet of around 1400 calories per day and exersizing far more than the average as well.

 

Now, we could argue that it might be worth it to do that, at least in some cases.  But I think we have to aknowledge that what that means is nothing like what most people would consider a normal way to eat, or a nice way to live in the long term - it means constantly counting calories, a lot of being hungry, and spending a lot of time in the gym.

 

I've never been inclined to be overweight, I tend to lose it if I am stressed, but I can tell you that if I had to eat 1400 a day to maintain my weight, I probably wouldn't manage it, and I don't know that I would try, because I don't really want to live like that.

 

I track every bite I put into my mouth  and I know that, for me, if I eat anything over around 1500/day, I will gain weight. 1300 or less and I can lose slowly. I'm active - I swim 3-4 times a week and play tennis once or twice a week. Plus, we walk a lot and I play with my kid a ton. I'm also still overweight, though have been trying to lose. I'm short, which I'm guessing contributes to my low caloric threshold. I eat very well - little to no sweets, lots of fresh fruit and veggies, vegetarian, little to no processed foods. I make pretty much everything from scratch. I'm healthy - cholesterol, BP and blood sugar are all good. But i'm in between a size 12-14, which is far from ideal, especially at my height. I'm doing everything I can to be healthy, and hate to be thought as a glutton.

[Laurie4b]

I have a couple thoughts that have been floating around in my head for a while. This will ramble.

 

Re: gluttony: I was once a glutton. High school, college, as a young adult, I ate enormous amounts of food. I was not fat. At all. You would only know I was a greedy eater by watching me eat. And for those who have said that all people stop when they are full, that was not true. I stopped when I hurt if the food was good. I was motivated by taste, not satiety. It certainly wasn't unusual for a group of us to leave a table at a restaurant groaning--and none of us were overweight.

 

I gained weight during the 80s and 90s following the health recommendations of that time period: low fat & low protein (More with Less, etc. emphasizing how Americans ate way more protein than necessary), which left high carbs. I did eat whole grain products, but I gained. I also ate sugar because "fat is what makes you fat."  I also had pregnancies late in life and never really lost after the last baby. 

 

I am rarely greedy about food now, but I am overweight. A few years ago, someone was trying to sell me supplements. I replied that I eat a very healthy diet and didn't feel a need for supplements. She replied, "Your testimony is that you eat a healthy diet blah blah blah."  Obviously, she didn't believe me. She was a very petite woman. Clearly, she had no notion that one could be overweight and be currently eating a healthy diet. You can't tell by looking at someone how healthy their diet is or whether or not they are a glutton. When I was habitually gluttonous, I was also an athlete in excellent shape. Looked great. You can look at me now and tell that I am overweight but not that I eat healthy food and rarely overeat.

 

Back in the 90s, I thought a relative was a bit over the top with not eating sugar nor allowing her kids to eat it. She read alternative health sources. I thought another relative was wacky for being on the Atkins diet. That was clearly quackery. (In those days.) I am not surprised to read that now "they" are not sure about being overweight, etc. and health. Science keeps changing its recommendations as to what is healthy. (And although I do my best to be environmentally friendly and to have a low carbon footprint, it is my personal experience with scientific health info that keeps me agostic re: climate change. "All" the scientific authorities agreed that Atkins was a quack for several years. I think eliminating pollution is a good goal for many other reasons so it doesn't affect my voting, etc. It does affect my trust in "science." I don't want to start a rabbit trail. I am writing this to emphasize how this has affected my relationship with "science." ) I still keep up with the news, but find it very frustrating.

 

For a long time, I've read studies about weight and longevity and thought, "The doctors can't tell you how to lose weight and keep it off. Is it healthier to maintain and not gain or to try to lose? Once you're overweight and your body chemistry changes, how does it affect your health IF you manage to lose and keep it off?  Longterm studies seem to be lacking about longevity and weight loss."

 

So for now, kind of like Jean said, I'm doing things that I know are healthy for me: eating lots of fruits and veges, modest amounts of carbs,& plant fats; exercising very regularly, getting enough sleep. I happen to be losing weight. So okay, but even if I wasn't, I think these things would be good choices.