Disrupting the Obesity Narrative
For starters, the full title of Mike Schatzki’s The Great Fat Fraud is almost as long as the book. The paperback version of this volume only weighs in (pun intended) at 197 pages, and the conversational tone author Schatzki adapts makes this a book easily read in an afternoon, as I did.
I’ll be up front with you: if you’re a born skeptic who has extra pounds around the middle — a description which fits me to a “T,” unlike those pairs of size 40 pants which mock me from the back of my closet — this book provides the perfect excuse for you to not worry about dieting or strenuous exercise. Next to quitting smoking, losing weight is the most popular New Year’s resolution, so it seems an appropriate time to peruse this book and its message.
And the main point of The Great Fat Fraud is pretty simple: being fit is achievable regardless of size. As long as one maintains a desired activity level in life, the amount of weight being carried doesn’t matter. Schatzki uses a measuring stick of fitness activity as walking 10,000 steps per day — bear in mind that an average person already walks 4,000 steps per day in his or her daily routine — and cites the research necessary to back up the assertion in the first half of the book. That part makes perfect sense, and the tone Schatzki writes in seems to me much like a chat one might have with a well-informed doctor or fitness guru.
But it’s the second half of the book I found more interesting, and to me that portion is the root of The Great Fat Fraud. Simply put, there’s a multibillion dollar industry which survives by making people believe they need to be less portly to be more healthy. And whether they opt for diet pills, group programs like Weight Watchers, specialized diets provided by companies such as Nutrisystem, or the extreme case of bariatric surgery, those in search of public acceptance through conforming to what society deems a healthy, proportionate body fatten the coffers of the Weight Loss Industry which created the Obesity Epidemic — Schatzki refers to both in upper-case.
As a political analyst, and knowing our state and federal governments spend billions of tax dollars promoting the message of the Obesity Epidemic, that portion of the book was the one I found a little bit lacking. Schatzki spends a short, twelve-page segment of the book pointing out the fact that government didn’t really care all that much about obesity until a 2004 study of mortality — written and reviewed in large part by an Obesity Task Force heavily populated with directors of weight loss clinics — concluded 400,000 Americans per year died from obesity. But he doesn’t continue on and follow the money, nor does he wonder about who’s really paying for the implicit message which benefits certain favored industries like Big Medicine or Big Pharma. After all, the narrative and coverage plays into the belief that if the government says it’s true, it must be so.
In fairness, I have not read the book. But, as a physician, I cringe at the thought of my patients bringing this book to my office. This I know…Apples are worse than pears and intraabdominal fat leads to insulin resistance that, in turn, leads to diabetes.
Diabetes ain’t fun. Just ask one.
i think the point is over weight does not equal unhealthy no more than skinny equals healthy. i am skinny but not healthy while my sister is over weight and, according to her doctor, as healthy as a horse. the difference? she is physically active daily through her job while i sit on my tush all day long in my job.
There are exceptions to every rule. Life is a Bell curve. I am happy your sister is healthy.
Vindico Libertas is absolutely right. Obesity is a sign that glucose metabolism is out of control, and heading toward diabetes. Well before the actual onset of diabetes, the excess glucose is causing huge amounts of damage throughout the body. This will show up as a whole range of degenerative diseases that are so prevalent now in the Western world.
You can lose fat without “dieting” by going paleo. I’m 63 years old. I eat as much as I want whenever I want. The weight just melts off if you stay away from the carbs and eat as much as you want of everything else. Over the past 6 months I’ve lost all of my excess weight down to the weight I was when I started college, when I was in the best shape of my life. As a side effect, I also have more energy, sleep better and I’m much more flexible. My blood tests show fasting glucose below 80 and cholesterol and triglyceride readings way over into the healthy side.
Don’t damage your health by buying into this “fat can be healthy” rationalization. If you are fat, you have glucose metabolism out of whack. Period. Do something about it or you will wind up with degenerative diseases. The best place to start is Gary Taubes’ book, “Why We Get Fat”. And follow up with any of Loren Cordain’s books on paleo. It doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to starve yourself. You just need to learn what a healthy diet consists of.
You are exactly right freetrader. At 66 I have dropped my excesss 35 pounds, my blood work is near perfect and I feel 20 years younger. All the result of dumping the carbs. Bacon and eggs in the morning and steak at night, never hungry and more energy than I know what to do with.
No surprise that the Atkins diet works- it stimulates gluconeogenesis which consumes a large amount of energy. Still, be careful not to overtax your liver in the process.
After reading this article, I was glad to see someone in the comments section mention “Why We Get Fat.” I found Gary Taubes’ arguments to be a compelling, so I gave the no/low-carb lifestyle a go. While I’ve always been a healthy weight, and was only trying to lose 5lbs or so, after going low-carb I was amazed at my energy levels and overall feeling of health. I also had blood work done after 8 weeks on the diet and found that my cholesterol levels were all pretty much perfect.
I encourage anyone struggling with their weight to read the book.
I’ve tried about a dozen different low-carb diets/lifestyle changes and all of them failed miserably while making me continually sick as a dog. I can only take that for about six months before I give up on them. I know I’ll never convince a true believer such as yourself but ‘going paleo’ has failed millions of people so it’s no sure-fire recipe.
You are missing the point. The current weight loss industry revolves around crash diets, idiot routines, and unsustainable eating habits. After most of the “approved” diets or regimes out there, you often end up far fatter than when you started at worst, or you end up like most of the girls I used to see in LA, who are either spindle shaped (no arms, no legs, all bottom) or you end up looking like someone who was living in one of the concentration camps.
On top of that, the constant guilt-tripping doesn’t help either. If you spend all day telling someone that they are a hideous lard who ought to have the meal card taken away, guess what, they get depressed. You know what people do when they are depressed? They eat. Good job.
Then there is the constant stream of insults, crude jokes, and routine belittlement. One does begin to wonder after a while if the fat nazi’s are really the sort of person one actually desires the approval of.
A friend of mine used to say that Americans will do anything to lose weight but exercise regularly and eat sensibly.
What Jeff and Voyager said. I figured out about 40 years ago that if I wanted to lose weight, eating less or burning more was a surefire way to go about it.
The overwhelming marketing of “diets” is a killer because it begins and ends with the assumption that the consumer can buy a product that will give them a result that they haven’t really decided to obtain. If they had actually DECIDED that they wanted the result (less fat) there never was and never will be any reality-based reason to BUY something to “make it happen.”
The marketing and the willingness to be deceived so as to make weight loss easy has produced an entire industry that is dependent on its target market being hooked on illusions.
Sorry dude
Preaching fat acceptance is not going to help. We have a serious problem and that’s the truth.
You have a right to your opinion. Does your comment, “We have a serious problem . . .” place you in the group that are not of the perscribed governmental dimentions? If you are not part of that group what part of the problem belongs to you?
What we need are more Americans who look like the Michelin Man. Already grotesquely swollen American abound along with their metabolic disorders. American’s are becoming jokes around the world with photos of fat American moms and dads easy to pick out against the thinner rest of the world. I live in an city with a world renowned university and the you almost never see a fat Asian American. On the other hand daily I see other Americans who are so fat and unhealthy they literally cannot walk. Now electric powered chairs are provided to they never have to get off their huge asses.
And there in lies the real crux of the matter, it is not about health, it is about others not being embarrassed when the class photos are compared. You provide no objective evidence these people are unhealthy, only that their rounded features offend and embarrass you. It seems whatever the spin about diet and exercise, it ultimately comes down to not looking like you’ve enjoyed a meal. You can be as unhealthy as you want as long as you aren’t round.
Maybe, it is because Asian food simply isn’t that good. Ever think of that?
There’s a reason why McDonalds and Pizzahut are found throughout the world, and Akbar’s Camel nuggets are not.
American food tastes good, and there’s plenty of it.
I think it was Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, who said: “A woman can’t be too rich or too thin.” For a guy, I guess you can never be too rich or be too out of shape. Ugh. You’re right, though. Eat sensibly, stop drinking junk like sodas and alcoholic beverages, do some walking, and you should be fine. No sense in going on crash diets, starving yourself, or working out 5 hours a day. Once you go back to your old routine, you’ll gain all the weight right back. So be sensible and like what you end up with, a plump human who enjoys being at the top of the food chain.
The key phrase in the article is “I was rail-thin through my high school days, but ballooned over time”. You added weight over time by eating a few more calories a day than you burned, over the course of a year you gained 5 pounds, the next year you added 10, and so on until your pants started mocking you. If you added the weight by eating a tiny bit more than you needed over time then shouldn’t you be able to lose the weight by eating a tiny bit less than you need over time?
Identify and eliminate all those hidden calories that you’re eating, practice portion control, cut back on the carbs, quit drinking those 400 calorie “coffees” and engage in very moderate exercise (strenuous exercise will stimulate your appetite). Yeah, it’s not glamorous, it wouldn’t have earned you a spot on Oprah, and it won’t help you lose 100 pounds by sundown, but it will work. You gained the weight over time, why must you lose it in two days? Oh right, there’s no money to be had in you giving up your Snickers Bar.
It is a very old scam. The author will make a lot of money telling people what they want to hear. Instead of giving their money to Weight Watchers they will give it to him which is a lot easier and you dont have to go to all those pesky meetings. You dont even have to get out of your chair if you buy the Kindle version.
I am waiting for the sequel promoting Cigars and Scotch drinking as a healthy alternative to exercise.
Welcome to the world of fat acceptance, an odd alliance of skeptical libertarians and feminists who agree that it’s wrong to demonize and stigmatize fat people, though from different premises (the libertarians, like you, think we have a right to eat what we want without being condemned by government based on bad science; the feminists are more focused on how women have greater demands to be thin than men and insist on a right not to be judged by men for their weight.)
The particular concept here is more thoroughly fleshed out elsewhere as “health at every size,” the idea that medicine should focus on healthy habits rather than pushing weight loss. There are three main reasons to do so: (1) urging weight loss encourages dangerous and unhealthy habits, such as starving oneself, yo-yo dieting, and suffering from additional stress and depression, (2) sustained weight loss is very rare, succeeding in at most 10-20% of patients, and (3) scientific studies increasingly show that healthy behaviors do more to prevent medical problems than weight loss.
For example, this study based on the same databases usually used to show the dangers of fat looked at risk of early death with respect to four “healthy lifestyle habits” as well as obesity (http://www.jabfm.org/content/25/1/9.full.pdf). The habits were:
1. Not smoking
2. Drinking in moderation ( 12 times per month)
4. Eating 5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
Two big results came out:
1. Regardless of weight group, the more habits you had, the lower your risk of early death. I.e., obese people with 1 habit had lower risk than thin people with 0; obese people with 2 had lower risk than thin people with 1, and so on.
2. The only drastic difference in risk by weight came from the 0 healthy habits group, where obese people had a whopping 3.5 times risk of early death compared to thin people with 0 habits. In each of the 2-4 habit groups, difference in risk by weight was small to neglible.
The correct health recommendation appears to be to not smoke, drink in moderation, exercise regularly in moderation, eat nutritious food, and then not worry about weight. If you do all that and happen to lose weight, fine; if not, it doesn’t make you significantly less healthy.
This totally ignores ethnic/racial/class differences. The “obesity epidemic” is heavily weighted toward African-Americans, some hispanics, and some poor whites. Richer whites and Asians are much thinner, and whites and richer African-Americans are the principal customers of the “Fat Industry.” The bad health effects of obesity are heavily weighted toward African-Americans, because of their genetic tendency to retain sodium. The Obama administration is to be commended for trying to improve health, diet and exercise awareness among African-Americans.
Seems obvious to me that extra pounds put extra stresses on all of the body’s organs and systems. Even if a person walks dozens of miles a day, that will still be true.
Are there any fat people who have lived to be 100?
Yeah, but it depends on what you consider “fat”. Grandma lived to 103, gave up smoking in her 70′s, liked her morning egg cooked in the grease from the bacon. She walked everywhere, never had a driver’s license, and had a BMI probably around 30. 3 of her sisters lived into their nineties, with varying habits (Great-Aunt Sue liked beer and cigars, was about as heavy, only made it to 97). So it’s probably one of those “sturdy German peasants all the way back” things.
Remember, a decade or two ago, the government decided that the old weight charts were wrong and that people who used to be considered healthy, were now considered slightly overweight, while the people who used to be “underweight” are now considered normal. Oh, except that a few years ago, it turned out that people who are now “slightly overweight” (used to be normal), live the longest.
I agree the focus should be on good health and not weightloss. Weightloss should be a side effect of healthy eating and excersise. Being obsessed over a number on the scale is mentally unhealthy and feeling bad about yourself is mentally unhealthy. The truth is I know plenty of skinny people who gave very unhealthy habits. Including starving themselves, living on caffiene, not excersising or eating the proper amounts of the right foods. I think the pressure to be skinny for those trying to lose can have the opposite effect. Overeating is an emotional problem for so many who either feel overwhelmed or hopeless or embarrased. You can be truthful with someone about a weight issue without being hurtful.
And add nicotine to the list.
Anybody who’s smoking to avoid gaining weight has an eating disorder by definition.
Did you know that our Sec’y of Health and Human Services (there’s a title) has traveled around the country giving anti-fat speeches (she herself qualifies as one of Tom Wolfe’s social x-rays) and that your government bureaucrats have provided her with important looking “obesity maps” showing where the fat pockets in America are ?
Lately, though, she’s so busy drafting the volumes of arcane rules you will have to wade through after Obamacare goes into effect (unless the SCOTUS saves us) that she’s been pontificating less on the Deep Fat problem in America.
If we don’t get these people out of our lives, we’re going to hell in a handbasket, fat, skinny or whatever.
Last week Charles Barkley was caught on one of those embarrassing open mikes saying that Weight Watchers (for which he is apparently a spokesperson) is a “scam”.
I’d say the whole celebrity spokesperson deal is a scam and an integral part of the Obesity Industry.
Good points all around, and this article plus a lot of the comments would give a fuller picture.
Before I went on the misery diet, I was a small, light-framed woman carrying a little more fat than I wanted, which I was trying to control with diet and exercise. After my husband announced to me that he was having an affair, I lost 30 pounds and it was not voluntary. The first 10 pounds or so looked good, and won me lots of compliments, but as this went on, those who wished me well started making discreet inquiries.
Many times, thinness is not a sign of health, but severe stress on the body, perhaps illness or perhaps the strain of dealing with evildoers. In my experience, illness is not as quick or as effective for using up fat and other resources, as evil.
I resolved to “build a Heaven in Hell’s despite,” took the steps necessary to get away from the influence of the creeps. Among other things, I also enlisted a personal trainer to help me keep active and conserve my physical resources. By the time I lost twenty pounds, I had started to put together a plan. At twenty-five, I was bottoming out, breaking all my nails off and losing my hair. The jeans I wore in college were too big, and for the first time in my adult life, I had no boobs and high cheek bones. I handled two moves, an ambivalent, depressed, emotional fool of a man, and rebuilt a new life for myself and my children.
In the process, I sought treatment for something that eventually turned out to be early adrenal fatigue. For those who don’t know, that can kill you.
Recovery has been a long, hard road, involving close physical monitoring, counseling, a lot of physical rest, and weight gain that shot right past what I used to think of as fat. But I have noticed that my body responds to the way it is treated, exactly as we all know it should. If I eat more calories than I need, I gain weight. If I don’t get the sleep I need, I drag and gain weight. If I get in two hours of aerobic activity per week, after about 6 weeks, I gain two hours of active time per day, all week long. If I lift weights in addition to doing the aerobics, I gain strength, look better and either hold my weight steady, or lose a little. And every time I push too hard, I injure myself and have to rest (and gain weight as a side effect) and start over.
The interesting thing is, I look great. My hair has grown back and looks healthy, my nails have stopped breaking, my skin is the best it has ever been. My figure is nicely carved, and nobody is ever going to notice the extra on my middle and tops of my thighs, because those boobs and behind are just showy enough to get all the attention. I am fat, my BMI says I am fat, and I can look in the mirror and see that I look good.
The brutal facts are these: If you are an adult and have a basically healthy body, your weight is determined by your accumulated daily habits. If you are gaining weight, it’s because you’re either eating the wrong things, not getting enough physical activity, or both. This situation is fixable, because the body retains the ability to adapt, right into doddering old age. Your immediate health is determined more by what you’ve done in the last three months than any single factor. You can be fat and look and feel good, provided you have been giving your body the nutrition and activity it needs for the last six months.
Way to go, the nasty little secret being that nobody can bring you back from anything but you.
I am pre-destined, biologically, to have a hard time losing weight. Besides metabolism, that little hunger hormone Ghrelin goes off when I try to skip a meal.
Only when I (or rather my body) lost interest in food (a screwed up knee that took months to heal) did I drop significant weight, which has stayed off but wants to creep back on as Ghrelin screams for food
A good principle is permanently lowering your base weight, giving your body a new normal.
Some fat is essential for many body functions, including but not limited to maintaining the integrity of cell membranes.
Health Tips R Us
I agree that the weight loss industry has not been helpful, but I think that before the WLI gets involved, the fashion industry does its groundwork. The normal woman leading a rather balanced life and maintaining a stable weight is now portayed as overweight and is encouraged to get rid of an extra 10 pounds. This is the beginning of the bad self image and the yo-yo effect.
Another factor is that regular mealtimes with meals cooked (not warmed in the microwave) by mom have been supplanted by soccer mom types running around trying to accomodate unbelievable family schedules. Where is the time to cook broccoli when the fast food joint is so much easier? Perhaps a bit more boring lives would do us all good by helping us live by healthier routines.
Go read:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/doonan/2012/01/was_marilyn_monroe_fat_her_secrets_revealed_.html
Maybe there is a market for an app called Put Your Pictures on a Diet. Then we could all go back to eating healthy foods we enjoy and otherwise living a normal life sans fashion gurus and diet experts.
Actually at least one commercial weight loss program has been proven to be twice as effective as medical therapy.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61344-5/abstract
When I saw the title of this post, my first thought was that it was going to debunk the 40 year old “low fat is good” trope. My wife and I both stay slim and heathy by ensuring we have ENOUGH fat in our diet (and limit the carbs of course). The low fat meme was started by the same types that are promoting global warming now. George McGovern, Nader, Center for “science in the public interest” etc… Whatever these people are promoting you can generally do the right thing by doing the opposite. Another thing that the conventional wisdom rejects but that works beautifully is HGC (the prescription version, not the questionable internet sourced versions). You do need to work with a physician to do this correctly and safely, but the results are great. The weight will come right back though if you eat low fat high carb.
I think there is a correlation between the old stereotype of a certain type of laziness and being fat. Part of the problem is that exercise is thought of as work because it is outside a normal routine – at first.
If you do just a little for a short time to start out it eventually becomes fun, especially if it’s something like bicycling or challenging if you’ve never jumped rope.
There’s no way around it – go out and be an animal: run, jump, skip, hop, and bicycle and hike. You won’t regret it.
metabolic syndrome
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1272&bih=877&q=metabolic+syndrome&gbv=2&oq=metabolic+syndrome&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=0l0l0l924l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0
Anything that disrupts the government “narrative” about how the would-be totalitarians in power want us, the great unwashed, to live gets my attention. The BMI measurement lost me in the 1990s when it decided that NFL player Shannon Sharpe was “obese”; the guy had a measured 2% body fat then and may have 3% or 4% now that he’s retired. He is in no way obese; watch him on TV and you decide. Yes, there are all sorts of diseases and bad genetics that can either result from or cause being over a certain desired weight. But it bugs the heck out of me when the government decides what I should eat and what I should weigh. I’m surprised that more commenters here haven’t noticed that aspect of it. Propaganda is insidious that way.
You’re right on the BMI thing. I have a friend who moves furniture for a living. He is a mass of rock solid muscle from tip to toe without an ounce of fat anywhere. And he’s been told he needs to lose weight because his BMI is so high. Sheesh.
Yes, it’s surprising to see that the indoctrination is so effective that even such small government-loving skeptics of nanny state intrusion as the readers at PJM buy the government-sponsored “obesity epidemic” hype hook, line and sinker. The “obesity epidemic” became a government & media narrative after the government reordered the BMI chart in 1998, and radically redefined the official definitions of “overweight” and “obesity.”
I remember looking at the new BMI chart with total disdain the day it went up on the weight room wall. I was a jacked 6’1′ 190 lb two-sport college athlete with 5% body fat (plus or minus a bit here or there) at the time. But I was officially designated “overweight” by the new BMI chart. In order to not be classified as overweight, I would have had to have dropped down to 170-175 lb. There was no accounting for context (e.g., body composition [body fat %], bone structure, differing body types, etc). Everything was stripped down to rote height and weight, and then assigned what appeared to be an arbitrary (and in many cases, ludicrous) cutoff weight for being “healthy,” rather than “overweight,” or “obese.”
By the new guidelines, Michael Jordan (who, at the time, was leading the Bulls to their 6th NBA Championship as a sculpted 6’6,” 215 pound guard) was officially designated as severely “overweight.” Arnold Schwarzenegger in his roided-up “Mr. Universe” competitive body building prime would have been designated “obese,” despite having had a sub-5% body fat level.
I was still young at the time, but I was conservative, and I had enough awareness of the game to understand that the intent of the new BMI chart was to manufacture a new “crisis” that would allow liberal politicians to call for new “sin taxes” on junk food (like the “sin tax” on tobacco) and allow them to demonize “big food” the way they demonized “big tobacco,” “big oil,” “big pharma” and “big business” in general. The charade was made all the more obvious when, who else but the boozy lard-ass Liberal Lion Ted Kennedy took up the cause of the new BMI chart, and played the Cassandra role, warning against the sudden “obesity epidemic.”
A few short years later, Left wing polemicist/filmmaker Morgan Spurlock gave McDonald’s and the fast food industry the Michael Moore treatment with his documentary “Super Size Me.” The point of Mr. Spurlock’s much-hyped (by the media and by … wait for it … liberal politicians!) film was to convince the public that the “food industry” was to blame for their fat-assedness and poor health, that they were “victims” of the food industry, and that the government needed to step in and regulate the hell out of the food industry. And Mr. Spurlock admitted as much: at the peak of the “Super Size Me” media juggernaut, Spurlock said that his film was intended to get government more involved in regulating food.
Are there too many fat Americans? Sure. But the “obesity epidemic” that America (including conservatives) perpetually frets over is a manufactured crisis, circa 1998. But hey, never let a good crisis go to waste!
If PJM starts preaching the FA tripe I’m gone. I get enough of this from my friends who want me to love the lard.
Reading about diets is like reading about Keynesian economics.
In Keynesian economics they claim you’ll improve your economic bottom line by spending more than you take in. No you don’t. You improve your bottom line by spending less than you take in. It’s really simple, but many people can make themselves believe all kinds of BS.
And likewise in diets the simple truth is that you lose weight by spending more energy than you take in. So take… less… in. Eat as many times as you wish. Just put less on the plate. A meal should be the size of of one fist. So if you eat a steak, fine eat the steak. But ONLY the steak. Why? because a steak is the size of a fist. No potatoes, no vegetables, just the steak.
And there is nothing dangerous about being hungry. You can skip breakfast and nothing bad happens. Actually you can skip food an entire day and nothing bad will happen. Stop being obsessed with the fear of being hungry. You don’t die from being hungry. Actually, you can go without food for weeks. So absolutely nothing bad will happen because you skip a meal once in a while. It is a natural state for humans to be hungry. It’s what motivated our ancestors to go hunting and collecting. Only in modern times has food been so abundant that we can stuff our mouths all day long and never be hungry.
Every single fat person I know is absolutely obsessed with never ever missing a meal. They always finish their plate. And a meal of a fat person always consists of at least 4-5 fistfuls of food. There are no exceptions to this rule. A single meal for a fat person consist of an entire days worth of food. And they wonder why they are fat. And no it doesn’t make you less fat if your plate consists of 5 fistfuls of couscous. It’s the sheer amount of food that counts.
And if you can’t do this, then at least stay away from sugar and carbon hydrates that creates sugar “highs” and messes with your brain and makes you a food junkie.
One warning though- prolonged fasting can cause a Breathalyzer to give a false positive due to buildup of isopropanol in your blood. Make sure you don’t get a DUI or cause your employer to think you were drinking on the job.
Okay I may think that FA is a bunch of feelgood drivel but your comment is almost as bad.
“A meal should be the size of of one fist. So if you eat a steak, fine eat the steak. But ONLY the steak. Why? because a steak is the size of a fist. No potatoes, no vegetables, just the steak.”
Actually most agree that carb, calorie, and portion control are the keys to good eating habits. The reason is because a portion does not indicate the nutritional value of a meal but can lend to feeling full (which discourages further eating).
Your view just sounds myopic. You’re looking at how big a portion is rather than what that portion is lending to the way you function.
“And there is nothing dangerous about being hungry. You can skip breakfast and nothing bad happens. Actually you can skip food an entire day and nothing bad will happen.”
There should be a Sometimes in there. I work at a physically demanding job and I will tell you that we always know who missed a meal by how bad their butts are dragging.
The primary purpose of eating in general is to nourish you for daily living. So if you drag tail all day because you have no fuel then that is in fact something bad.
“Every single fat person I know is absolutely obsessed with never ever missing a meal. They always finish their plate. And a meal of a fat person always consists of at least 4-5 fistfuls of food. There are no exceptions to this rule.”
Every rule has exceptions. Wether you aknowledge them or not.
“A single meal for a fat person consist of an entire days worth of food. And they wonder why they are fat.”
A single meal *can* consist of a day’s worth of food. There are exceptions.
“And no it doesn’t make you less fat if your plate consists of 5 fistfuls of couscous. It’s the sheer amount of food that counts.”
No it doesn’t. A portion of raw lard can have more fat than a portion of Rabbit (100% lean meat).
Not all portions are created equal. Hell by your myopic example a fistfull of candy is equal to a fistful of salad.
You are a poster boy for not believing everything you hear online.
“Every single fat person I know is absolutely obsessed with never ever missing a meal. They always finish their plate. And a meal of a fat person always consists of at least 4-5 fistfuls of food. There are no exceptions to this rule. A single meal for a fat person consist of an entire days worth of food. And they wonder why they are fat.”
Wow, the fat people you know must looooove you. I think you’ve fallen into the trap of believing that fat people are fat entirely because they are slobs with no self-control. I submit that we need to all get off our high horses and stop regarding fat people as second-class citizens with a lack of will-power. Obesity is a disease. Would you mock someone who was afflicted with cancer for their disease?
Do me a favor and do some research into weight-loss trials. It’s not as simple as you think. There have been about a gazillion studies done where obese people were put on extremely low-calorie diets and forced to exercise. Many of them hardly lost any weight, even though they were on near-starvation diets.
I’ve always been a skinny person, but I’ve watched friends and loved ones struggle with their weight over the years and it infuriates me that so many people have no compassion for the obese at all. The answer isn’t just “suck it up and deal with your hunger pangs.”
As a heart rhythm specialist, my experience differs a little from the author of this book. Being dramatically overweight (as you are) dramatically increases your risk of developing obstructive sleep apnea. In fact, I consider anyone who has a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 to have sleep apnea until proven otherwise. Sleep apnea is probably the strongest risk factor for the development of atrial fibrillation in patients without structural heart disease. So, atrial fibrillation is essentially a disease of obesity. Period. It may not cut your life short by much, but it is really a bummer to have.
I share your skepticism about the industry that has arisen around weight loss, mainly because despite all the money being spent, nothing works very well. In addition, I have no doubt that there are those who stand to gain financially from your efforts and the efforts of others to lose weight, but there is also no doubt in my mind that the one who has the most to gain from weight loss is you.
It’s annoying to have to click ‘view as a single page’ every time I read a pajamasmedia article. It makes me not do it much.
Typical lazy American.
Easy way to stabilize at a healthy weight:
1) Eliminate wheat products (including whole wheat). Read ‘Wheat Belly’ for reasons.
2) Eliminate all sugar-sweetened/corn syrup sweetened foods.
3) Eliminate sweet drinks (incl. juices) and snack foods (chips, fries, etc).
4) Get some excercise – pref. daily.
5) Increase your consumption of protein (esp. meat and fish) each day.
If you want to binge once every few weeks, do so. Then go back to the above.
Easy, simple, and it works.
Yes, cutting out wheat and sugar does remarkable things for weight loss, increase of energy, blood sugar levels, etc.
What you *can* eat as a Celiac or gluten-intolerant: meat, dairy, fruit, veggies, and grains like quinoa, teff, and amaranth, also carbs made from potatoes and corn.
Since eliminating gluten, friends have told me I look less “puffy.” Also, no more little belly after eating pizza and pasta.
So–just seconding the no-wheat comment.
Before the sixties all portion was smaller including drinks, & everything we think as junk food. We all ate fat, whole milk & butter, meat. Maybe it is all the government, diet & medical interference that screwed everything. I remember reading that before WWII Londoners at 4000 calories & Americans ate about 2500 calories a day and we did not have an obesity epidemic.
Yep it was the food pyramid recommending an almost all carb diet. The 4 food group, is good enough to me. Meat has been demonized but is great at making you feel full for an extended period of time.
I would guess that the amount of people who are overweight, according to their own standards, who make a diet book is small (meaning they are doctors, learned nutritionists only in it for the money – supposedly). That being said, I believe that most diet books (or fads), are, yes, from people who are trying to make money, but also, and perhaps most importantly, from people who live a certain way, find that it works, and think that it is good enough for everybody. Fine. Get over it. This is capitalism, folks. Not everyone that sells snake oil is a snakes oil salesmen.
It is no mystery why people are fat. You have to make up for the loss of activity in life if you want to stay fit. You can go milk the cows at six a.m., or you can go for a run. Your choice.
“You can be healthy without being skinny” is not “fat acceptance”.
72 minute talk by Taubes. He debunks the calories in, calories out myth.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149
My daughter NEVER had a weight issue in her entire life when she was living under MY roof. She was always naturally muscular and very fit.
Then, came along obese tweedle DUM who decided to sweep her off of her feet and tell her how beautiful and wonderful she was and then proceed to fatten her up (so nobody else would want her). She went from being a naturally svelte woman to a whopping fatty and I blame it on the creep she is engaged to who insisted that she eat like his fat @ss. His sabotage of my beautiful daughter is complete. She is now HUGE and I’m terrified for her health because my husband and I both have diabetes in our family. Great! Just freakin’ great!
For my daughter, I know it’s purely DIETARY because she works harder and is busier than she ever was living under MY roof.
*sigh*
I’m so frustrated and worried and she is completely oblivious even though I try to ‘hint’ at her losing some weight and eating healthier.
/personal rant off
So, Mike when you gettin’ started….again???
Just move more, eat less. It’s really that simple. But, do it consistantly.
After reading through these comments I had a sort of flashback. Every one of my failures at losing weight has it’s advocate in these 30 comments. You know what I’ve learned after many diets/lifestyle changes and reading book after book and website after website? NOBODY knows how this stuff works. There is no magic solution, because humans are not machines, and we simply don’t know enough about how our bodies work to have any sure-fire solution.
I have learned what the problem is in my own case. A couple of years ago I went back and tracked my weight against the high-stress periods in my job–guess what? Stress increase equaled weight increase. Stress decrease equaled weight decrease. Dieting is a stress increase, and strangely enough tended to precede high stress periods at work. So I feel better, lose a little weight, and think it’s time to really push to it goes down. So I start a diet or ‘lifestyle change’ and then when I hit a spike in worry from work, my weight goes up, regardless of how few calories I’m eating. I gained 60 pounds in 6 months after decreasing my intake by 1000 calories a day–how did I manage that? I worked nights at the time, in a high-stress job. I never eat enough, haven’t for years; I’m starving pretty much any time I haven’t filled my belly with water. I never eat enough to gain weight according to the weight/calorie charts. Yet I lose no weight, because there are lots of other factors involved. Practically every chart I can find shows that I should be losing 1.5 – 2 pounds a week…but I don’t.
I don’t pretend that this means anything to anybody else, because I don’t believe there’s a magic formula that will fit everyone. I’ve simply learned how my own body works, and fixing it is a problem in an economy like this. Every tech job is high-stress today, because we’re all working longer hours with fewer resources while being hobbled by the current pointless fad of extreme security everywhere. After all, if I’ve been trusted with root/admin access to thousands of servers for 10 years, why am I suddenly not worthy of that trust? Moving to a different industry means a complete collapse of lifestyle for all those who depend on me, so it’s out of the question. And the frustration of that realization is yet another added stress to keep me from losing weight…
I’ve rather enjoyed this discussion, and it worked out better than I thought it might when I submitted the review to PJ Media.
Notably, some of you have hit the nail on the head in terms of diagnosing some other items I didn’t add to the original review – as one example I do suffer from sleep apnea. And my eating habits aren’t the greatest, probably because I barely eat breakfast and don’t often have lunch so I go a bit overboard with dinner.
It’s also worth mentioning that I don’t write full-time, and as part of the evolution from being in the building industry where I used to work to making my way in this particular avocation I work in the merchandising field. It’s a job where I’m on my feet quite a bit moving around various stores, several hours a day. On the other hand, when I write (as I am now) I sit in my favorite rocking chair with my laptop so I don’t move a great deal for my writing jobs.
In doing my outside job over the last several months I’ve noticed my weight isn’t fluctuating a whole lot. Maybe I gained a pound or two over the holidays but the additional hours I worked in the stores probably prevented me from picking up a dozen.
As I noted in the review, what Schatzki wrote made perfect sense to me because of my own experience. Perhaps there was some assistance from the appetite suppression drugs I took but aside from that I ate pretty much what I wanted to. My willpower seemed to be a lot better back then, but I also had more of a daily routine than I have now.
I have also tried the low-carb diets and they were successful until I got tired of depriving myself some of the things I liked, such as warm garlic bread or chocolate chip cookies. I know there are ways to prepare these foods without adding that many carbs but they’re just not the same.
But it’s not about fat acceptance. I’m quite aware I’m heavier than I should be and I’m not especially happy about it. That’s why I keep the size 40 pants because my plan is to get back into them. If I did it once I can do it again.
Again, I appreciate all the input. I like being one of the guests here and figure the more comments I receive the easier it is to be invited back when writing about items of broader interest than the focus of my home site, which generally covers the political ins and outs of my adopted home state – the People’s Republic of Maryland.
Now if I could only figure out a way to write as I take a walk around my neighborhood (which I actually enjoy doing) that would be an outstanding way to kill two birds with one stone.