Fat Logic

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's exactly the opposite of what I said.

Sorry, this thread topic has come up again and again always with the same uninformed arguments people just need to quit putting food in their mouths. Your comment, "evolution has made us efficient at storing calories", I never said that. And, "most of humanity is "weak-willed", said it's just a matter of will power. Claiming lack of it was common ignores the real causes of obesity.

What should I be reading, by the way? Do you have references? I'm genuinely interested.

The National Weight Control Registry

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), established in 1994 by
Rena Wing, Ph.D. from Brown Medical School, and James O. Hill, Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, is the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight loss maintenance. Given the prevailing belief that few individuals succeed at long-term weight loss, the NWCR was developed to identify and investigate the characteristics of individuals who have succeeded at long-term weight loss. The NWCR is tracking over 10,000 individuals who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off for long periods of time.

Research findings

What sucks is when one tries to address the evidence, the usual suspects show up in the thread to proclaim everything is an excuse for fat people to not blame themselves. And that's crap. The point is to look at the evidence, not the bigoted "will power is all it is" ignorance.

 

[Corsair 115]

Research findings

What sucks is when one tries to address the evidence, the usual suspects show up in the thread to proclaim everything is an excuse for fat people to not blame themselves. And that's crap. The point is to look at the evidence, not the bigoted "will power is all it is" ignorance.

The abstract of the first study on that link:

The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest study of individuals successful at long-term maintenance of weight loss. Despite extensive histories of overweight, the 629 women and 155 men in the registry lost an average of 30 kg and maintained a required minimum weight loss of 13.6 kg for 5 y. A little over one-half of the sample lost weight through formal programs; the remainder lost weight on their own. Both groups reported having used both diet and exercise to lose weight and nearly 77% of the sample reported that a triggering event had preceded their successful weight loss. Mean (+/-SD) current consumption reported by registry members was 5778 +/- 2200 kJ/d, with 24 +/- 9% of energy from fat, Members also appear to be highly active: they reported expending approximately 11830 kJ/wk through physical activity. Surprisingly, 42% of the sample reported that maintaining their weight loss was less difficult than losing weight. Nearly all registry members indicated that weight loss led to improvements in their level of energy, physical mobility, general mood, self-confidence, and physical health. In summary, the NWCR identified a large sample of individuals who were highly successful at maintaining weight loss. Future prospective studies will determine variables that predict continued maintenance of weight loss.

The abstract of the second study on that link:

OBJECTIVES: To describe the dietary intakes of persons who successfully maintained weight loss and to determine if differences exist between those who lost weight on their own vs those who received assistance with weight loss (eg, participated in a commercial or self-help program or were seen individually by a dietitian). Intakes of selected nutrients were also compared with data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) and the 1989 Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs).

SUBJECTS: Subjects were 355 women and 83 men, aged 18 years or older, primarily white, who had maintained a weight loss of at least 13.6 kg for at least 1 year, and were the initial enrollees in the ongoing National Weight Control Registry. On average, the participants had lost 30 kg and maintained the weight loss for 5.1 years.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study in which subjects in the registry completed demographic and weight history questionnaires as well as the Health Habits and History Questionnaire developed by Block et al. Subjects' dietary intake data were compared with that of similarly aged men and women in the NHANES III cohort and to the RDAs. Adequacy of the diet was assessed by comparing the intake of selected nutrients (iron; calcium; and vitamins C, A, and E) in subjects who lost weight on their own or with assistance.

RESULTS: Successful maintainers of weight loss reported continued consumption of a low-energy and low-fat diet. Women in the registry reported eating an average of 1,306 kcal/day (24.3% of energy from fat); men reported consuming 1,685 kcal (23.5% of energy from fat). Subjects in the registry reported consuming less energy and a lower percentage of energy from fat than NHANES III subjects did. Subjects who lost weight on their own did not differ from those who lost weight with assistance in regards to energy intake, percent of energy from fat, or intake of selected nutrients (iron; calcium; and vitamins C, A, and E). In addition, subjects who lost weight on their own and those who lost weight with assistance met the RDAs for calcium and vitamins C, A, and E for persons aged 25 years or older.

APPLICATIONS: Because continued consumption of a low-fat, low-energy diet may be necessary for long-term weight control, persons who have successfully lost weight should be encouraged to maintain such a diet.

What, exactly, should I be looking for in the above abstracts as it pertains to the point you are trying to make?

 

[marplots]

Metabolism response to lowered calorie intake differs but regardless, there wouldn't be an issue if calories/in calories out wasn't the motto of the 'it's only willpower' crowd.

This is covered under rate considerations. I certainly accept that it's relative to the individual and needs to be titrated. Furthermore, were you considering that "calories out" included excrement?

There's another way to look at the whole situation, which may not be as controversial. Instead of looking at energy budget, we could look at mass directly. Then the claim would be: mass in - mass out = weight gain. You'd expect to see a balance achieved using either energy (calories) or mass, in the same way we'd expect to see it with water, salt or any other ins v. outs item of interest.

 

[marplots]

(some snipped)
What sucks is when one tries to address the evidence, the usual suspects show up in the thread to proclaim everything is an excuse for fat people to not blame themselves. And that's crap. The point is to look at the evidence, not the bigoted "will power is all it is" ignorance.

But isn't that the claim you are relying on? That people try to lose weight, it becomes to difficult for them, and then their diet is unsuccessful? I didn't think you were saying they stuck to calorie restriction and still failed - were you?

And, what are we going to call "will power" if it doesn't include the notion of self denial, and resisting strong biological and psychological urges/drives? That seems to me to be the very definition of will power.

We are not talking about holding your breath until you die, nor starving to death. I believe, for a couple hundred dollars, I could get an obese person to skip a meal. There is at least some element of choice here.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

tl,dr You didn't clearly make your point, you just dumped.

Yes, you didn't read, particularly the parts that addressed your claims, and now you still are not addressing those things. How this is my problem I do not see.

Weight control research is all over the map. The best I've seen is a registry where people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off more than a year describe what they did.

Funny, you could read the OP. But it is interesting that you declare things a matter of "biology" based on such poor data.

The vast majority of people who try to lose weight don't succeed and many of them end up heavier than when they started.

I see we've switched to the next talking point.

 

[The Atheist]

Well, sure. I assumed that when you said "it's biological" you had something more in mind than "evolution has made us efficient at storing calories". I wonder if anybody could become fat, given the right circumstances?

I think some people would have to try very hard, and even then maybe not.

My 51 kg (114 lbs) wife has been the same weight since she was 12 years old and eats like two frigging horses, never mind one.

In fact, her metabolism is so high she has to eat every couple of hours or fall over. Perfectly healthy, no diabetes, just a metabolism that runs on turbo all the time. Does no exercise that isn't horizontal. Absolutely not bulimic.

If they could bottle what she's got, this subject wouldn't exist.

Right now, it's 8:45 pm and she's eating her standard 100g of chocolate to keep her going until morning.

Second, I don't think we have very good methods to lose weight. Again, evolution has worked very well at making us able to store calories, so that even if we need to get rid of them in a hurry, it's a grueling, tortuous process.

I'd like someone to explain that if it's all evolution, why then is it only in the past 40 years that obesity has occurred in large numbers of people?

Post-war deprivation was long gone by the '70s, yet people were all rakes. The years leading up to the Depression were also not years of starvation, yet people were generally slim.

Why is it only rearing its head now?

(I'd genuinely like to know for anyone with the evidence)

Same old tired BS from people who haven't read much at all in the field of obesity: People are fat because they are weak willed.

Laughable strawman.

Where has that been said?

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

These comparisons to holding breath or just making more money are silly. Quoting smoking would be a slightly better analogy, but any analogy is obscuring the issues.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I see lots of people whining that fat-shaming is bad, that it isn't their fault, that it's their genes, their metabolism....

Yet, they eat too much.

The end.

Well, not really.

I think the comparisons to drug addiction are fairly apt. Food creates chemical changes in the body and brain and some foodstuffs like sugar, can release endorphins and create a chemical and psychological dependency similar to opiates.

I think it might be better classified as an eating disorder than a simple lack of willpower. I doubt many people who are obese actually want to be obese, especially if they are at the stage of having associated health problems. I don't think that fat-shaming should be acceptable any more than thin-shaming is acceptable when talking about or to people who are anorexic. I don't think it's constructive but is instead aimed at making people who need help and compassion feel worse about themselves and, as a result, likely to make their condition worse.

 

[psionl0]

If I didn't want you to read the data I would (summarize the data dump).

I thought that was the purpose of the massive data dump - to discourage anybody from going through it too closely.

 

[psionl0]

I'd like someone to explain that if it's all evolution, why then is it only in the past 40 years that obesity has occurred in large numbers of people?

Post-war deprivation was long gone by the '70s, yet people were all rakes. The years leading up to the Depression were also not years of starvation, yet people were generally slim.

Why is it only rearing its head now?

It's not a great mystery. Thanks to technology, the population is much less physically active today (you don't even have to get up to change the TV channel anymore). Add to that the heavily promoted and readily available delicious high energy foods and the the world is just dying to become obese.

I actually qualify for the survey listed above. My secret? - get a job doing hard labour. A free workout every day has a lot going for it.

 

[Meed]

Why people want to eat too much is the problem for people who eat too much. I see lots of people whining that fat-shaming is bad, that it isn't their fault, that it's their genes, their metabolism....

Yet, they eat too much.

Fat-shaming is bad (not including things that get called "fat-shaming" that aren't actually shaming). And they eat (or at one point ate) too much. Both are true.

We can either figure a way out of it or face a lowering of age expectancies and an exponential increase in the cost of healthcare as a result. These things didn't exist just a generation ago, so if genes haven't undergone a massive change in the past 40 years, then people's attitudes have.

Or their environments have.

What makes you think shaming people is helpful? And how do you propose we go about carrying out these shamings that you seem to think are for the good of society?

 

[marplots]

I actually qualify for the survey listed above. My secret? - get a job doing hard labour. A free workout every day has a lot going for it.

Except you will immediately hear the objection that exercise (or increased activity) doesn't help.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Sorry, this thread topic has come up again and again always with the same uninformed arguments people just need to quit putting food in their mouths. Your comment, "evolution has made us efficient at storing calories", I never said that.

Hasn't it, though? Being able to store fat is an advantage in an environment where food can be scarce. Fortunately, due to advances in technology, we're now able to produce lots of cheap food, and even the poorest have pretty easy access to nutritious victuals. Unfortunately, we can also easily produce the most delicious food, which is sugary and fatty. Food is no longer scarce, but our bodies are still good at storing fat. What was once an asset has become a liability.

And, "most of humanity is "weak-willed", said it's just a matter of will power. Claiming lack of it was common ignores the real causes of obesity.

You're the one who brought up "weak-willed". Whether or not it's a matter of willpower might just be splitting hairs. Say that the problem is willpower. Fine. How do you get willpower? The issue is a lack of control. I'm sure that if you could just turn willpower on and off, most of us would do it.

What sucks is when one tries to address the evidence, the usual suspects show up in the thread to proclaim everything is an excuse for fat people to not blame themselves. And that's crap. The point is to look at the evidence, not the bigoted "will power is all it is" ignorance.

I feel like these are the same ones who think that depressed people just need to cheer up.

We are not talking about holding your breath until you die, nor starving to death. I believe, for a couple hundred dollars, I could get an obese person to skip a meal. There is at least some element of choice here.

Is it even possible to hold your breath until you die? Won't you just pass out?

I suppose there are a lot of unpleasant things you could get somebody to do for a couple hundred dollars. I don't think that proves much. We're not talking about skipping one meal here. A diet is a sustained program that often has little or no tangible benefits. It's very difficult to convince yourself to continue to do something painful which doesn't seem to have any immediate benefit.

I've been on a diet. I didn't lose weight. In fact, I think I gained weight. I got frustrated and abandoned the diet. My weight promptly dropped and then normalized. Makes no sense.

 

[psionl0]

Except you will immediately hear the objection that exercise (or increased activity) doesn't help.

Yes, I can see all the armchair experts weighing in on the debate already.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

Fat-shaming is bad (not including things that get called "fat-shaming" that aren't actually shaming). And they eat (or at one point ate) too much. Both are true.

The anti-fat hatred is bewildering to me. There's a sexist component, too, as it's directed much more at women than men, as if women have some kind of social responsibility to be thin and attractive.

If it's not my fat...why should I care? I mean, sure, if I had a friend who was overweight and obviously unhealthy and suffering for it, I would feel sorry for them, but, otherwise, it's not something that concerns me. It's just a way for people to feel superior to others and/or bully/harass them. The idea that shaming is actually "good for them" is laughable and irrational, and the excuse about "health care costs" is pathetic. I put fat-shamers in the same category as people who work themselves into a froth over high-school girls wearing clothing that is "too sexy" or the lyrics of hip-hop music being too violent. Mind your own business, FFS.

 

[Meed]

"Satiety" is the magic word. Try Googling: food volume and satiety studies, or: fiber and satiety studies. If you accept that blood sugar spikes increase hunger (which is quite clear) and that the time food spends in the stomach affects satiety (which is quite clear), that will give you more "indirect" studies relating to satiety. Those things are easier to measure and can be measured more accurately.

Thanks, I found some - I found a couple supporting that dietary fiber and volume increase satiety and tend to reduce the amount eaten later in the day. I'm not sure why I had trouble the last time I looked (it was a few years back).

 

[casebro]

Question for Buddha: How much has your weight varied? You have a strong opinion, give us your back story.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Same old tired BS from people who haven't read much at all in the field of obesity: People are fat because they are weak willed.

How is appetite control not a form of willpower?

 

[theprestige]

Okay. So this year I lost sixty pounds. I did it by by eating less and exercising more. As I brought my calorie intake back down to about what I actually needed to get through each day, and as I revved up my metabolism to consistently burn those calories each day, I lost about 2 pounds a week. As my body adapted to the new normal, I increased the intensity of my daily exercise (but not the duration). This has forced my body to maintain a more elevated metabolism, instead of adapting and going back to storing calories instead of burning them.

So. Pretty simple. Less food, more activity. Diet and exercise. Was I wrong? Did I oversimplify? Did I not lose 60 pounds in 6 months? Obviously I did. But what about back in January? If I told you back in January that I was planning to lose weight and keep it off, by a simple program of diet and exercise, would you have agreed that sounded plausible?

Or would you have told me that it's not that simple? That fat people can't lose weight by diet and exercise? That eating less food doesn't mean losing more weight? That my metabolism isn't something that can be easily hacked to perform better, and that my metabolism change can't start with the very simple step of exercising harder, more often?

I stipulate that there must be outliers, people for whom the simple program of diet and exercise will not make a major change in their weight. But everybody can't be an outlier. In fact, most people aren't outliers. The conventional wisdom is that most people are fat the way I'm fat: Overabundance of cheap and delicious calories, a sedentary lifestyle, and a lack of motivation.

Change the motivation, and the other two change themselves. If you have all three--motivation, diet, and exercise--and you're still overweight, then you're an outlier. Then you go to your physician and work with them to find the missing piece of your personal puzzle: The piece that you need to make your motivation, diet, and exercise really pay off for you.

All this talk about how it's complicated. About how calorie math isn't the answer. About how metabolism adapts to an unchanging activity level. About how it's too hard to lose weight. I call shenanigans. Show me somebody who says they don't diet and exercise because weight loss isn't that simple, and I'll show you somebody who wouldn't take the complicated solution if it came to them from a personal consultation with the Surgeon General, backed by the unanimous endorsement of the Presdient's Council on Physical Fitness.

Diet is simple and easy. Exercise is simple and easy. Motivation is simple and hard. Very hard. But get the motivation. Get the motivation, get the diet, get the exercise. Then we'll see if you're really a special snowflake complicated outlier who needs a personalized medical program for weight loss.

 

[Cain]

Do not keep junk food in your house.
Soda counts as junk food.
Stop watching television commercials. No, stop watching commercial television.
Ideally, get rid of your television.
Spend some of the new found time you're not watching the idiot box to exercise.
Incorporate resistance training to build muscle.
It's OK to eat like crap on occasion, but don't become a person who believes s/he is allowed to have a sugary treat every single damn day. You're not. Indulge when you're out with family or friends, but you shouldn't be shoveling ice cream on a regular Monday afternoon.
Nobody said it would be easy, but for a lot of people it only takes a few days to break the salt/sugar cravings.